


Royalty

by NatKing



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Comedy, Day 4 (Free Day), Elementary School to High School, Friendship goals, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, JJ Style, JJBella, JJBella Week, JJBellaWeek, Light Angst, Translation, anxiety attack, figure skating, ice hockey, supportive Isabella, supportive JJ, supportive family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-20 15:18:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13149393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NatKing/pseuds/NatKing
Summary: It was on a wednesday of fall, that Isabella met the royalty for the first time.JJBella Week - Day 4 - Free Day





	Royalty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JaMills](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaMills/gifts).
  * A translation of [Realeza](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12858651) by [NatKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NatKing/pseuds/NatKing). 



> Merry Christmas and hello!!
> 
> MY biggest thanks to EvilWriter, this amazing person and friend who acepted my ask and translated the whole fanfic just to me post it on Christmas! I'm so happy, y'all have no idea how much I cried haha xD This couldn't be possible without her work and words can't say how much I love and admire her :'D If you need someone to translate your work (Eng to PT and PT to Eng), her work is amazing! You can check out reading this oneshot, hehe xD
> 
> This is the first time I participate in a week and I am VERY nervous *laugh nervously* Wish me luck! :'D
> 
> "Royalty" was originally published in a Brazilian site named Nyah!, born of a handful of my headcanons as well as a reader and dear friend, JaMills, for whom I dedicate this story! Her main headcanon was the basis of this oneshot, that Isabella was a hockey player. The idea grew and took shape (as you may have noticed by the word counter xD) and one of my most beloved stories was born. I have a big love for this story and for this couple and I hope with all my heart that you like it, too! (but if you don't like it, it's fine haha).
> 
> Before you begin, a warning: there are scenes containing anxiety attacks, so caution when reading, if you are more sensitive, ok?
> 
> A big hug and good reading!

Isabella couldn’t keep herself concentrated during class, even with History being one of her favorite subjects. Actually, nothing in the world would be able to make her interested in that moment, where the cold classroom was like a huge invitation written in autumnal leafs and far-fetched words, almost a request sent by the season itself, waiting anxiously for her return to the ice. She sighed heavily another of her many lamentations made during that day, not knowing if she wanted to cry out of pure sadness, or screech away her irritation for being literally made to watch the autumn ending right in front of her eyes, leaving her behind. Like in one repetitive and exaggerated scene out of a romance movie, she leaned one hand on the window, in a mute farewell to the outside. As she watched her breath as it blurred the glass, condemning her view of the frozen rink, Isabella felt her heart cracked.

Cracked just like the nose of the boy who provoked her the same week.

Remembering the true reason that pushed her away from the hockey team activities and with that her own enjoyment of her favorite season was enough to make Yang lower her head on the table, in a hollow sound that drew the teacher’s attention.

“Miss Yang, if my class is so tedious, would you like to visit the principal’s office?”

Part of her - the one that was extremely exhausted just by being there -  wanted to immediately agree, however, her sane part refrained her to do so; she was already suspended from participating on the hockey team activities for a month, if the same happened to her classes she would have to fear for her ears.

The teacher took Isabella’s silence as a humble recognition of her place as a student as he went back to explain the French colonization, something the girl did not want to hear about. Her biggest worry was if she was able to train, or else she wouldn’t be able to keep up with her team’s pace at the time of her return. One month was far too much time…

With the end of her class, the girl ended up being the last one to leave, even if she was ready to jump out of the window if that made her able to come outside quickly. She tucked away her school materials, muttering about the sloppiness of her right arm inutilized by the splint and sling, something that only served to fuel her irritation. If leaving behind her backpack wasn’t a problem, she wouldn’t mind to throw her books away and run, but the extra volume in her belongings made any radical idea in her head truly inadmissible. Her mother would say that _patience is a virtue_ , one that, evidently, Isabella didn’t possess.

After she made her way to the front door without any unforeseen event, she glanced around until she was absolutely certain that no curious gaze would be able to watch her turning the opposite direction and running as far and as much as the extra weight allowed her to, far away from school. She saved her lunch money just to be able to take a bus ride back home and, to save even more, she was walking to her classes, saving every little coin that could stop her from taking any reprimands at home. The idea of taking a 2 hour lecture was more painful than her injured arm.

She hadn’t counted on her clock the time she took to reach the skating rink, but her chest complained and her unsteady breathing burned in a mute protest, begging for some rest. As expected, Yang never had time to rest, and as soon as she saw the front of the stadium, she made her way to the back.

The Royal Skating Center was a stadium open to visitors at varied times, and had the option to schedule the smaller rinks for particular use. It was the most popular place right after the public rink, especially because it hosted local skating competitions and skating classes, along with a flexibility of schedules great for those with a full agenda. Flexibility that was _great_ for Isabella, who was planning to come home before they realized her absence in a wednesday _with no training_.

The Royal was a responsible institution, and it would never let Isabella skate with a broken arm - that’s why she was entering through one of the windows on the back, outside the operating hours.

According to the local schedule, the last children class would be at 2:30 p.m and, after that, the Center would only resume its operations at 6:30 p.m, with adult oriented beginner classes. Glancing at her wristwatch, she mentally counted the time she would have until the next class, content with the two hours alone with the main rink.

After making her way through the bathroom window with the help of a metallic trash can that she pulled over, Isabella took away her backpack, placing it strategically at the sink’s corner in case she needed a emergencial flight. This way, her belongings would be waiting for her right by the window she entered from. As she undid her pair of boots, she made sure to think positively that _nothing_ would screw up her plan.

It was quite hard to tie her skates shoelaces with only one hand, but after a lot of patience and using her own teeth in place of her injured hand, Yang felt that she achieved a result good enough to handle the ice without much worry. Satisfied with the progress until there, she walked out from the locker room carefully, feeling her smile widening as the rink revealed itself for her eyes. With cheering or not, stepping on a ice rink was always an exciting experience, as if each step inside it was a step for something bigger, a personal realization that Isabella wouldn’t be able to express with words alone, even if she used the sport to cope with her sentimental mess. It wouldn’t matter how many times she crashed against the wall, how many pushes she took or the uncountable bruises collected with all the attrition, Yang would never trade the rink for anything else. The ice was responsible for being both stage and witness of her falls and rises, her biggest and only confident, besides having something magical in always being frozen, even during hot seasons. She knew that the real explanation had nothing fantastical, but she liked that sensation, it was like guarding the season all year long, things of her mind that she shared with no one, maybe because she had no one to share them with.

“Who are you?”

Even if the ice was clean of unevenness, Isabella tripped. She felt her shoulders tense as she turned around in the direction of the unknown voice, becoming a little more relieved when she noticed that it belong to a boy of her same age. Unfortunately, she was still partly desperate, looking for an escape route; Yang was in the middle of the rink and the boy was on its entrance, impending her exit. Jumping through the contention bars was not a good idea, considering the state of her arm. _Merde!_

“And who are you?” She decided to improvise, giving back the same question in a wary tone. The boy didn’t seem to like the answer that did nothing in actually answering his doubts, and he crossed his arms over his chest while a pout marked his contrariety.

“Did you know that this rink’s out of service?” The new question seemed to doubt Isabella’s comprehension abilities, even if it was devoid of any vexatious tone, unlike the boys she used to fight with.

“Yes, that’s why I came to use it,” she simply replied, making little of the invasion. If he was there, certainly it wouldn’t be a problem for her to be there, too.

“Yeah, but it’s me that’s going to skate here until it’s time to the next class.” Isabella let her chin fall; that boy staying would certainly harm her training.

“Why?!” Before she could think, she exteriorized her affliction.

“Because I need to train!” and as a way to reinforce the affirmation, he moved his blades in her direction, stopping a few meters away from her.

“Can’t you train later?” Even if she had nothing to trade with, Isabella tried to bargain.

“I have guitar class later.” The boy himself seemed to be disconcerted for not being able to help.

“Then I’ll have my training impaired because of your guitar class?” she couldn’t help but to exteriorize her disappointment, even if nothing was his fault.

“And why should I spoil _my_ training to let _you_ train?” The disconcert gave room for to indignation in the same amount as Isabella’s. Well, there wasn’t a reason, she just wanted to train and hoped to be able to do so.

“Fine, if you want it like that, then we’ll see who’s more deserving” she made her offer with a blasé tone, putting her hand on the waist. There should have something that would be able to make him give up, Isabella was good in making others giving up by tiring them out. “I came here first.” This argument used to be imbatible.

“Hidden, probably, because the Center is closed right now.” Mimicking her hand positioning, he too put his hands on his waist. The size difference made him look more imposing than her and Yang didn’t liked that.

“Alright, it’s a deal, you won” she bluffed. “Then why are _you_ here?”

The boy laughed for the walls to listen, as if he had their help and they could keep up with him with the mockery.

“Because I can.”

“Ah, you _can_ !?” Isabella’s tone went up a few notes along with her incredulity. “And what does _your majesty_ have that I don’t have?”

“My mom!” He shrugged as he laughed, in that subject that was much too obvious.

“That I have too!”

Before Yang kept on shouting, he understood that, somehow, the girl didn’t knew who he was. In what cave did she live to not know a thing about his family?

“I don’t think you understand, my mom’s Royal’s owner.”

Isabella’s mouth kept hanging open, letting half an offense die on her tongue. No way... She was really talking to the king!

“Look, why don’t you wait for the next class? It’s better to train with an instructor around, you could get hurt.” Glancing carefully at the sling, he concluded his thoughts.  “Even _more_ hurt.”

Isabella looked at the hurt arm and laughed. Certainly he thought that she was from one of the beginner classes, which was something that made sense, since the only times she put her foot on Royal was to watch a Christmas musical on ice.

“Actually I’m not a student from any class here” she admitted bashfully. She didn’t thought that she was in trouble now that she knew with who exactly she was speaking, so it was fine for her to be sincere. “I came to train hockey.”

The boy’s face went on different expressions that were incomprehensible to Isabella before a smile appeared on his lips.

“This explains the bruises.”

“Actually it explains the arm, the bruises I got from a fight.” To her surprise, he laughed. No one ever laughed when they discovered Yang’s temperamental side, not even her family.

“A delinquent invading Royal!” he joked, making Isabella laugh spitefully.

“And what will your majesty do, throw me in the dungeon?”

“No way, I don’t want to be a target of your fury!” He kept on the playful tone and his blue eyes seemed to shine in interest. “Do you play on a team?”

“On my school’s, Mileh Elementary.”

“Then why aren’t you training in your school’s rink?” way more insinuating, the boy started to skate around Isabella, finding that information to be a great counterargument.

“Because the fight I got in, your majesty, was _there_.” He seemed like he was about to burst out laughing again. “Four weeks suspended! And finals start right next month, if I don’t train during this time I’ll be a nuisance to my team when I get back.”

The boy put his fingers on his chin, frowning as he thought. There was a kind of exaggeration on his expression and Isabella asked herself if it was because of the boy’s large browns.

“You got a good point, but I have to train too.” Isabella let out a loud puff of irritation. “Soon the junior classifications will begin and I need a good score if want to go to the next level.”

“What do you do?” she got interested after realizing that the boy also had something to dedicate himself for.

“Figure skating!” The smile that accompanied that announcement was different from the insinuating and funny ones shown previously; this one seemed to shine. “The first stage will be here, even, right on this rink!”

Isabella stared at the floor beneath her feet, trying to visualize that scenario.

“Can’t you open an exception for me? There’s a trophy in game!” She gesticulated with her good arm, indicating how important it was for her.

“For me too!”

“But…! _Shit!_ ” She whined, stomping with the blade on the ice. Her plan seemed so good in her mind yet she still had to deal with that guy. The time they were spending talking could have made a lot of difference in her training and Isabella was spending it with a boy that she probably would never see again.

“Hey, it’s not my fault!” Yang didn’t noticed that the boy took some distance from her as a precaution. “Also it’s not like you could do a lot of training!”

“Of course I can!” If he somehow thought that a dislocated arm was going to stop her, he was dead wrong. “I’m a leftie!”

“That’s not what I wanted to say” he quickly justified. “It’s that you don’t have a stick, how are you going to train without proper equipment?”

He was right and that sucked.

“Doesn’t seem like this was a smart move to your plan…” he provoked, going back to the ironic tone.

“Maybe because I don’t have one!” she replied with an altered voice. What was so funny about joking over something so obvious?

“What kind of hockey player are you if you don’t even have a stick?” The boy laughed at the red that was starting to color her face. Personally, he was finding funny how the red on the pale skin mixed with the purple bruises and her glitter lipstick. “How do you even play?”

“I broke it!” she screamed over his laughs, an explosion that echoed all over. “In the face of the bastard that provoked me, that’s why I’m not with my team!”

The laughter stopped, but the good humor was still present on the skater’s expressions. Isabella didn’t know if scaring him was a good or bad thing, but she kept on frowning, keeping her guard up as she waited for the next opportunity to take away that stupid smile from his pretty face.

“Cool…” he was visibly admired. As if finally convinced of the girl’s qualities, he offered his hand. “I’m Jean-Jacques Leroy.”

“Isabella Yang” she returned with a firm hand squeeze, finally giving in and letting go of her defensive frown.

“So, Isabella, I guess we can share the rink until next class, okay?”

The solution was so simple it was ridiculous that they didn’t consider it before.

“Won’t it be a problem to share the rink with a mere plebeian, your majesty?” she ironized as she curved herself.

“No, I’m a benevolent king…” he joked along with her. “I trust that miss Yang won’t barbarize my kingdom or try to break my face.”

“Don’t be so sure of that.”

The laughter of them both seemed to dissolve any weird first impressions that they had of each other, making way only for good humor and ice between them.

“I only need to train some jumps, I think it’ll work.” Jean informed and Isabella agreed, looking around. “Wait right there, I think I can get a broom stick for you in the cleaning closet! It might help you!”

“It helps, thank you!” The resolution of her problems was going so well that she even allowed herself to smile.

“Okay, don’t go away!”

There was nowhere for her to go, but she decided not to ironize Jean this time, not when he was trying to be so sympathetic. The first part of her plan went smoothly, now she only had to manage coming back home without raising suspicions that her day was an absolute success.

It didn’t took long to Leroy to come back with a mop, apologizing for not having any better substitute. She thanked him for the help and made sure that the object was of good use, showing him that it could be handled like a professional hockey stick. After they decided their rink sides, both started their trainings.

The difference in their styles was even more evident when they positioned themselves, Jean-Jacques with the feet and arms in the classic position and Isabella inclinating herself  forward, keeping the mop next to her body. Mentally, they could hear their signs to begin, the first chords of Chopin to him and the whistle to her.

They couldn’t help looking at the other half of the rink once in a while, attracted to the astonishing performance and curiosity to each other. The way that Isabella craved her skate blades on the floor and made the ice fly with aggressive maneuvers surprised Jean many times. He could see her using the improvised stick with dexterity, even with an immobile arm, and in each smile, he could see her making a point. What an amazing girl! In the ice she seemed to be the only one to shine, like a starry sky!

Noticing that she was a target of Leroy’s attention, Bella arched her brows, silently questioning his interest.

“Do you play on centre?” The reply was a large smile over how evident that was. “Nice!”

“Thank you” she thanked a little shyly, being inexperient with compliments.

Jean’s side also called her attention. Unlike Isabella, who had aggressive steps that made a mess in the rink whenever she played, he was sliding on the ice as if he was some specie of winter fairy, smooth and delicate. Some jumps were possible to predict because of the way he lightly bent his knees, but it was when he landed that Isabella noticed the amount of effort in that sport masked with sutility. The impact created in the end of each jump, however, didn’t changed his expressions or interrupted his step sequences, making her admired.

“What was that you just did?”

“I was _trying_ to do a salchow…” he explained with a shy smile. It wasn’t even a third of what it was supposed to be.

“Cool!” Isabella’s compliment, however, was enough to raise his spirits. “Did you know that hockey skates were made to handle impact while figure skates were projected to help with the jumps?” Yang left out the information and went back to train, making Jean smile like a goof.

She was smaller than him, but incredibly strong. If alone Isabella carried a huge offensive energy, Leroy imagined how it would be to see her in top form, both arms free, complete team and deafening cheering surrounding her. He wondered that if her school let people come to watch the games, he surely would love to watch her closely.

Not wanting to be the only one left astonished, he impulsively decided to try a quad salchow, even if that jump was only allowed in the senior category and he was only fourteen. Guided by the confidence in his own good job - or the weird necessity of showing himself as being like Isabella -, he believed that he was capable. His salchow was almost perfect, doing the quad was going to be easy.

He distanced himself, hesitated for a few seconds, enough to gain Yang’s attention, and he skated, gaining speed in each step, more than he was used to. Yang’s scared expression confirmed that, but he couldn’t stop anymore; now not so sure of himself, Jean launched his body to the air, crossing his leg and making one, two spins… Not even finishing the third before coming back to the ice. The landing was a disaster, with rough steps as he tried to slow down the speed he gathered from the jump, his arms searching for stability. In an automatic gesture, Isabella offered her arm in Jeans direction, as if that was enough to not make him fall, but her good intention alone wasn’t enough and Jean-Jacques wasn’t able to stop until the wall did him this favor, using his own face as a break.

“Jean!!” abandoning the mop, she ran in the direction of the fallen skater, without being able to hide her panic when she saw Leroy’s face washed in blood.

Her despair was enough to make Jean despair too, who started to scream. With the crescent panic, Isabella could barely think, even if she felt in the obligation to calm down the boy. Remembering all the similar accidents she saw and suffered seemed to be enough to make her take the initiative to run in search of a shirt that was left behind in the bathroom.

A white shirt. Isabella hoped not to be killed for that good action.

When she came back to the rink, Jean was sitting on the ice, head up and vague gaze searching for something above him, maybe a divine sign. When he felt a hand holding his head, he could swear it was an angel;

“You can’t position your head like that when your nose is bleeding!” He didn’t know angels could be that harsh. “Jean! Can you hear me?”

“Huh?” was his weak reply.

“Jean, sit down, back straight! Lay yourself on the wall, if needed!” He did so obediently. Now that the shock was over, he could understand better what was happening. “Don’t move your head up, keep it down!”

“But then my sweater will get dirty…” he lamented, disobeying her orientation keeping his chin up.

“No problem, do it on mine!” Isabella went back to forcing the skater’s head down, using the clean shirt to contain the bleeding.

“No!!” Jean’s protest ended up being in vain. It was a desolating vision to see the white fabric getting stained so quickly, especially because he was responsible to wash his own clothes. As he imagined how hard it would be to clean that bloodstain he trembled and felt a pain that was way worse than having a hurt nose.

“It’s dangerous for your lungs or you can choke, if you let your head like that” Isabella explained, profound and strangely knowing about bleedings. “You have to let it go to alleviate the pressure, if you keep your face up the hemorrhage can get worse.”

“You said hemorrhage?!” The word mentioned came back to scare him.”

“It’s not that bad, I swear, it happens to me all the time!”

“All the time?!” Jean couldn’t guess which information was worse.

“I didn’t want to say that, but I think we need an adult.”

The constatation of the problem’s gravity only appeared with Isabella’s declaration. Jeand didn’t want his worried mother close by, neither Yang was in the mood for another lecture, this one worse, since she ran away from her punishment. _What a day!_

“Do you have your parents number or something?” the girl asked, scrubbing her hand on the floor and putting the ice shards close to the swollen nose.

“ _Ouch!_ My mom” he stopped talking to complain about the pain of having dirty ice on his face. “she must be in the office with my sister, she takes care of Royal’s administrative.”

“Okay, where is this room?” with one of his bloodied fingers, he pointed the direction.

“Besides the main door there’s a stair behind the reception, which takes to the upper floor with the administrative section, she’ll be alone with my sister.”

“It’s okay, then I’m going…” There wasn’t a lot of confidence in Isabella’s voice and she hoped that at least some courage could stay with her until she could get help. Her knees were starting to tremble, but she couldn’t let Jean in that situation. Searching for breath, she decided: “I’ll be back soon!”

She didn’t stay long enough to hear Leroy’s answer and she ran out of the rink, stepping firmly on the floor with her blades and trying not to think much about how they were getting damaged. The metallic sound accompanied her dislocation like the soundtrack of a horror movie. Isabella didn’t know which monster would be worse for her to handle, the family of the fallen king or her own.

She took a deep breath when she saw the stairs and threw herself at the steps, hearing as she moved up the sound of a children’s song along with the singing of an adult voice, Jean-Jacques mother’s. She couldn’t breath until she got to the room, where the woman with glasses reacted in terror as she saw an unknown person entering the room.

“Are you Jean’s mother?”

Isabella wanted not to think about how stupid that question was.

.:.

The nurses had left the Skating Center almost an hour ago, when Isabella’s family finally could be contacted. Sitting side by side at the administrative room, Jean and Yang kept on silent, waiting for the time when they’d get both lectured.

Thankfully for Nathalie Leroy, the skater’s mom, his accident wasn’t anything bad, just a hurt nose that bled.

Bled a lot.

Anyway, the young king’s life wasn’t at risk, and neither his face would get scarred because of it. Before the ambulance came to rescue him, the bleeding had stopped already, thanks to the first aid that Isabella executed. Nathalie couldn’t be more thankful. Isabella just wished more people were thankful.

“Two days of total rest…” said Yand out loud, trying to fill in the awkward silence. She felt guilty, somehow.

“It could have been worse” he replied, looking at the bandage on his nose with the help of his mother’s pocket mirror, “it could have been four weeks.”

Isabella glared at him, divided between punching him and hugging him. She chose to laugh; the bandage and his nasal voice made him sound pretty funny.

“At least now we’re matching in terms of bruises, majesty.”

“Nothing that would affect my pretty face…” he tried to joke, touching cautiously the purple skin that wasn’t covered. “Every king has their war scars.”

The laughter barely started before it got interrupted when Isabella heard the fast pace and the echo of the heels that she knew way too well. Even if it was possible to hear Nathalie’s voice trying to calm whoever it was, things didn’t look good for the girl.

“Looks like your mom’s gonna kill you…” Jean felt sorry for her.

It didn’t took long before two women entered the room, with miss Leroy following behind them. Isabella groaned; it was worse than expected.

“Yeah, both” she whispered, keeping her head down. “Hi mom… Hi mom…” she tried to greet them, but neither were very calma.

“Isabella Yang, what’s the meaning of this?” the first woman’s voice, too loud and harsh, filled the room, seeming to put everyone against the wall.

“How is it possible that even in this state you keep on getting in trouble, dear?” the other, with narrow eyes just like hers, was more worried. “Haven’t you learned a thing with what happened with you and the hockey team?!”

“It wasn’t me that hurt him this time, I swear!” Isabella had swore many times before, but they were all lies. What a time to speak the truth!

“Excuse me…” Nathalie asked, fearful of the possibility of being shut down like that. “But your daughter’s right, JJ hurt himself when he was training unsupervised” the observation was a little more tense, aimed directly at her son. “It was her that helped him and looked for me after doing the first aids, so my family’s very grateful for her help. Even the nurses praised her attitude, she’s a very responsible lady.”

The mothers didn’t agree with “responsible”, but they were left disarmed after so many compliments aimed at Isabella. Exchanging glances in a mute conversation that only both of them could understand, they reached to an agreement and calmed down, at least for that moment.

“In that case, we’re sorry, Izzy…” the taller spoke. “We’re glad you helped your friend.”

“But you’re still in trouble, young lady. What did the doctor told you about your arm?”

“I know, but my left one’s fine.” To confirm what she said, she gesticulated.

“And who let you step on the rink with your arm like that?”

Nathalie couldn’t help with that, since she had no registry of the Yang family on Royal and she hadn’t stopped to think about how the girl managed to enter when the Center was closed to the general public.

“It was me…” Jean took responsibility, to the surprise of everyone, including Isabella. “I found Isabella before I came here and she asked me if we were closed.” Each word was said carefully and with guilt. “I said that only my family was using the Center and asked her if she’d like to share the rink with me before next class, that’s all… Did I do bad?”

What an amazing liar! Isabella wanted to learn that technique too!

“When did that happen, JJ?” Nathalie too the bait.

“You already got up with Amélie, I came back to the car to get my skates since I forgot them.”

And that’s how Izzy discovered what made Jean late and made it possible for her to enter without being saw. What a coincidence!

“JJ, I understand you wanted to be gentle, but Isabella’s arm is immobilized, it was irresponsible for you to let her sakte, son.”

“Irresponsible of both” the girl’s second mom didn’t let the guilt to fall only on the boy, “because Izzy knew the doctor’s orders.”

“I’m sorry…” they both spoke at the same time. Their hurt faces and sad expressions impending the discussion to keep on during that afternoon.

“Miss Leroy, we want to apologize for the problems caused today” taking away the attention from the sad faces, one of the women started to talk to Nathalie. “We know that you have an occupation here and all this trouble ended up disturbing your work.”

“No problem, it was JJ that ended up getting hurt…”

“But you ended up having to pay attention to Isabella, too, so it ended up being another thing to worry about.” Exchanging glances with her wife, they again decided something in silence. “Can we offer a dinner for you and your family at our house?” Nathalie didn’t know how to react at first to that invitation, staying in silence. “Please, it’d be a pleasure to have you at our home, especially after what you did to Izzy today.”

Moments of tension followed the lack of words from miss Leroy. When the suspense was already killing Isabella and Jean, she gave in.

“It’s okay, we’ll be more than happy to accept it.”

Internally, they both screamed.

.:.

The Yang’s home was surrounded by maples, the country’s characteristic trees, which contributed to the floor that was full of the red leaf that was the national pride. Jean loved that symbol, patriot as he was, that he couldn’t wait for the time to tattoo it. His eighteenth birthday was highly anticipated.

The Leroy family came out loudly from the car, a mess of childish screams protagonized by the little siblings, while he helped his fathers to take out all the stuff that the younger one needed for being a baby. The Leroy were known for being expansives, be it in personality, looks or food. An invitation to dinner in the home of Nathalie and Alain was sure to make each of their guests have a full plate, if they could get by the door; and them being the guests was the guarantee to bring much to the table and that the Yang discovered as soon as they opened the door to receive the family and three different pies.

“I told you didn’t need to bring anything!” they clarified, even if it was too late to protest.

“No problem, we couldn’t have come without helping with the dinner!” Alain laughed. He was great at balancing a child and a plate using only one arm.

“JJ, son, aren’t you forgetting something?”

Besides the pie held firmly, Jean-Jacques had already forgotten of the hand hidden behind his back. He was still a bit lost, with a funny feeling on his stomach over seeing Isabella again, the face less purple, but equally colorful with the vibrant combination of blue makeup on her eyes and pink lipstick on the lips. The glitter, this time, was at the nails, even at the immobilized hand and he couldn’t imagine how Isabella managed to do that.

In what appeared to happen in slow motion, Jean took his gift and watched as Izzy’s face transformed from surprise to an explosion of uncensored happiness. She had to control herself to not start jumping to take the hockey stick fresh from the store and use it right away, still with the red ribbon adorning it.

“You didn’t have to buy something so expensive…” ignoring one of Isabella’s mothers lamentations, Jean made sure to point all the qualities of the gift.

“It was the best one at the store, the seller said it handles five times more impact than the others, so you can hit it how many times you want, it’ll be hard to break.”

The girls mothers didn’t know if they should get happy or not with that information.

Lily Yang and her wife, Rita, didn’t like the interest of their daughter in such an aggressive sport, but ever since she was a child she was hooked on hockey, perhaps partly because of the beloved grandpa Montanari, Rita’s father and the first to take the little one to a noisy game at the season’s end. Isabella left it practically jumping thanks to the excitement and it made him gift her a stick which she slept with at the same day. The object accompanied the girl during nine years and found its end at the face of an idiot at her school. When the anger was gone, she cried at her lost, so gaining a new stick represented to her more than a game instrument, it was the chance to revive the first game along with her grandfather.

“Please, come in” the finally said, letting the family to accommodate themselves. “We’ll get the table made for dinner, Izzy, do you want to show your room to Jean in this meantime?”

Happy with the suggestion, she showed him the way, guiding her new friend to the vibrant colored room. JJ got impressed at how Isabella’s room was filled with posters - between them one of his favorite band, Canadian Spirit -, photos with the family and showing bruises as proudly as the medals and trophies that she won thanks to hockey. Along with all the prizes, there were plushies of many kinds and thematic Barbies from movies, just like the pink curtains and the bed with cushions printed with Disney characters. Yang was an interesting mix of things and Jean found that to be amazing.

“This one’s my favorite!” she said as she reached to a transparent trophy with the silhouette of a hockey player sculpted in. “Competition from last year, prize for the best center-player! The category was free and six students were indicated!” Isabella made a pause to keep up with the mystery, having fun with Jean’s expectatives. “I was the first girl to win!”

Jean’s eyes widened in genuine admiration.

“That’s amazing, Bella!”

Izzy laughed loudly to distract the crescent blush from her cheeks when she heard him call her by that name. It wasn’t common, even her mothers only called her by the english name.

“It’s been awhile since someone called me that!” Jean’s sincere smile changed to one more jokingly.

“Did you know that _bella_ in italian means _pretty_?” he asked in an insinuating tone, trying to show off his language knowledge in that situation.

“Yes, my grandpa was italian.” He wasn’t expecting that reply. He cleared his throat in a low tune and fixed his posture before talking again.

“So, is it fine if I call you Bella?”

“It depends, the name or the compliment?” it was the skater that blushed now. “I’m joking, _JJ,_ of course you can!”

He was relieved. He didn’t need to tell her that he meant both.

“When my grandpa was alive, I was always telling him that I was going to the Olympics…” Isabella remembered, taking away the trophy. “Do you have a goal like that, JJ?”

The words seemed to stop right by his lips, but for some reason they didn’t came out. IN place of an explanation in words, he shrugged, laughing shyly afterwards. What was the meaning of that?

“Have I ever told you the story of my first medal?” Opting not to force him, she assumed the protagonism of the night and tried to search for more stories about her to tell.

They kept on talking about Isabella’s prizes, Vancouver and the Olympic Winter Games, until Nathalie called them to the best dinner they ever had.

.:.

Isabella had been left in front of the public skating rink, where she’d spent the rest of the day with Jean. The invitation happened during the dinner, where the girl’s mothers couldn’t deny. The Leroy, too busy with Royal’s preparations to the skating preliminaries that would happen, couldn’t give much attention to their oldest child, so they found the idea of him having extra company during these days even better, which disarmed any argument from Lily and Rita, who said that the only condition was that Isabella couldn’t skate alone, considering the state of her arm. Conditions met and accepted, there she was with her most colorful sweater, nails done and a huge smile, excited with that sunday’s schedule.

“You still doing that girl’s sport?”

Her excitement, however, had been cut short when she noticed the nastiest person in the planet - perhaps the universe - pestering Jean. She quickly walked until them, being able to hear the last provocation.

“This is a free country, Williams, if you want to live somewhere that doesn’t approve same sex relationships, you’ll have to take a flight to Asia” Jean said with political - and a little rude - knowledge.

“Isn’t Asia where your boyfriend’s at?”

With a proposital push, Isabella announced her arrival. Jean seemed to be happy and grateful to see her and even more relieved when she positioned defensively in front of him.

“Hello, Williams, how are you doing? Did you know I got a new stick? They say it handles even five times more impact, I was looking for somebody to help me test it.”

Glancing up and down, the boy got away not saying a word. The day was saved without his disgusting presence close by.

“Since when did you know Williams?” Jean managed to speak afterwards.

“It was on his face that I destroyed my last stick.” Leroy’s laughter filled the place and seeing him like that made her relieved.

“You’re my heroin! I was dying to know who did that!” Proud of that, Isabella grinned. “Thank you.”

“It was a pleasure, I could break stuff on his disgusting face the whole day!”

“Not for that, for defending me” his tone was ashamed. “He always gets to put me against the wall and even if I reply, Williams is too aggressive…”

It wasn’t the first time she saw him so vulnerable. She wondered what was the meaning of it.

“Don’t worry about it, really…” she said what she thought was the best. Isabella only argued with people that provoked her, personally she was completely against agressivity and passive-agressiveness, even managing to get scared with direct attacks. She would not say it to Jean, though, at least not now. “He’s a bully of the worst kind, attacks everyone and couldn’t handle the pressure when I got the trophy of best central in front of him.” That new information made Jean smile again.

“He's always comparing me to girls, as if that was an insult.”

“And don’t I know about it? I can’t wait for his father to come back to United States…” To Isabella and Jean’s luck, the diplomatic work of William’s father was soon to end  and with it, his prejudiced son would go away too.

“That’s why you broke his nose?”

“No, he was talking about my mothers.” JJ got silent with that. “Nothing new coming from him, right?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Pretending to be observing something in her nails, she tried to ignore the weird sensation of showing her fragility to someone. “And you, where did you met him?”

“When I lived in America a few years ago. He was bothering a friend of mine because he’s half Latino, and after me and another friend defended Leo, Williams started bothering us too, called us a couple, tons of nonsense. Otabek said that he wanted to show off and I agree.”

“Otabek?” The name was uncommon for the place they lived in. “Was Williams talking about him when I arrived?” JJ agreed.

“Otabek Altin was my rinkmate when I was training in America. We used to have the same coach, but we had a fight and I moved on to another one, before coming back home.” The professional historic seemed to mean failure to him. “But we’re still friends, despite the distance. Beka even managed to get a spot to participate in a course with Yakov Feltsman, can you believe that?” The sadness was replaced with content for his friend. “The same coach of Victor Nikiforov and Georgi Popovich from Russia!”

Those names Isabella knew fairly well. She couldn’t not know them, they were the best in their country, Victor being the main star ever since his debut in junior category. Particularly, Yang was more fond of Georgi’s dramatic interpretation than Victor’s plastified smiles, but she’d rather not say that out loud since she was afraid that JJ was another one of Victor’s many fans.

“And you didn't try to get a spot there, too?” A guilty expression delivered part of the reply.

“It’s a great course, my old coaches were great too, but, I don’t know, they seemed to follow a very specific formula… There’s no dialog or condition for you to change your training and I felt limited… I wanted to do more, I tried to talk about my style, but they did nothing, so I backed off.” The last words died on his lips, Isabella wondered at what moment Jean started to not look in her eyes. “Yeah. I ran away.”

“Ran away from what? Aren’t your parents coaching you?”

“I was a little selfish…” There was an insistence of self penalizing on him that Yang was trying hard to understand.

“There’s no selfishness in insisting on what you believe it’s right for you” those were Rita’s words and Isabella was proud of keeping them in mind. “If none of them managed to train the _JJ Style_ , you’d better look for someone that can.”

“ _JJ Style?_ ” The boy laughed. “I’ll adopt that one, can I?”

“Of course, majesty.” Bella offered a wink. “And the whole world will see how amazing your style is and how it works in the future! When can you enter senior? Next year, right?”

“Yeah, but I think I should hold back one more year…” She stared at him silently, waiting for him to finish explaining. “I didn’t tell you that night at the dinner but I have the dream of going to the Olympics, too.”

A brief moment of shock before the explosion:

“That’s awesome, JJ! Why didn’t you tell me before?” she loved to see that they had another thing in common.

“It’s because I…” he babble. “I’m not sure if I’m able to… You know…”

It was weird to see Jean-Jacques hesitant and doubtful of his own capacity like that, for Yang there was no reason to someone with that name and family not to believe in the golden star that was shining like his own future, but she didn’t let the conversation go down because of it, whatever the reason was.

“Of course you can! I need you to tell the whole world that it was you who gave me that stick when I get my place in the podium!”

Jean smiled with that thought, enough to make Isabella stop finding his discouragement to be weird.

“Come on, let’s go to the rink, I want to know more about JJ Style!” she invited him and Jean was unable to hesitate in front of it.

.:.

Between one training and the other, Jean let his guitar aside to massage the calloused tips of his fingers and spy at his phone. He received one message from Isabella that morning, all in caps, announcing that the responsibles for the hockey team called her to have a talk. There was still a week let for Isabella to let go of the sling and two more before her suspension to end, and the expectation that this talk would shorten that period made the both of them agitated.

However, the day was passing without Bella saying anything. He tried to reach out to her, sent some jokes, emojis and he was almost deciding to call her when his guitar class started. Not being able to use his phone during class, he had to hide it carefully in a way that reminded him of _Mission: Impossible_ as he sat on it. Still, each time the phone vibrated and he was almost caught spying it, no signs of Isabella. It was in times like these that Jean would love to actually be a king; he would have already sent an entire cavalry to retrieve the girl.

It was a surprise and relief to see Isabella waiting for him outside the music school, as soon as he put his feet outside the main door. Resisting the temptation to run to her and ask what happened, Jean only waved, and once she caught his act, the girl ran to greet him. Even before she started to speak, JJ noticed that there was something wrong with her.

“How was your class?” The smile on her glitter tinted lips was unable to hide her sadness.

“What happened?” Answering one of Isabella’s question with another one usually was bound to make her irritated, but this time Jean heard nothing about it. “You vanished the whole day, I…” The boy needed to take a deep breath. “I got worried.”

Isabella stared at his eyes directly for the first time in that night, truly touched. Jean followed her as she started to walk.

“I’m sorry, JJ, I didn’t want to talk before because I thought you’d get worried and you still had to train, so… I guessed it was better to tell you later.”

“No big deal, I was waiting for you to call me.” Like a gentleman, he offered to walk her bag, thing the girl accepted without protesting. “How long have you been waiting out there in the cold?”

Isabella pushed him as she laughed.

“I’m not made of glass, majesty, I can handle half an hour outside!”

“Or you could have gotten in and wait in the climatized room.”

It made sense and she would have a machine of hot drinks at her disposition, but she wasn’t in a good day to interact with people.

“Won’t you tell me what happened?” Jean’s voice was careful and with a bit of worry. Isabella was already regretting not sending in a message, but she needed that contact with someone that, in such a small amount of time, was her best friend. Her only friend.

“The coaches responsible for my team asked me to talk to them in the training rink after class.” Touched, her brown eyes shone with the excitement of being back, and this time, her smile was genuine. “It was so good to be back, to hear the sticks hitting against each other, my friends cheering and planning attacks… It was like I was coming back after years!” Her smile withered and her chin started to wrinkle as she tried not to cry. “Then I went back to talk to my coach, smiling like an idiot, just to hear that they decided to put me on the bench after my suspension’s over!”

The end of her sentence was punctuated by a loud sob.

“But they can’t do that, you’re a titular!”

“I told them the same thing just to hear that there are benched girls as good as me, waiting for a chance and that with my suspension and my arm being hurt, I couldn’t guarantee being in top form at the start of the season!”

Angry, Isabella rubbed her eyes, trying to contain her tears. The mixture of anger and sadness made her not to know how to act in that situation and Jean seemed to be the only person she could cry to and that wouldn’t judge her.

“So this means you won’t play anymore?” That was sad. Isabella always talked with enthusiasm about the sport and she spoke about her games as if she was reviving them over and over again, so much that he wanted to watch her live and see for himself closely all of her feats. He could easily understand, since he couldn’t imagine himself without figure skating.

“I won’t give up!” she screamed, almost offended at Jean for having considered that decision from her part. “I never give up! Not even if, I dunno,” pointing to the sky above their heads, she empathized what was going to be said afterwards. “Even if the night should fall! I always do my best!” Surprised by her brave words, Leroy just kept on listening. Isabella didn’t mind holding her tears, not ashamed of showing them anymore. “That’s who I am.”

“I know you can do it, Bella” for Jean there were no doubts; she was inspiring. “You can do it and I’ll be there to cheer for you!”

“King JJ’s gonna cheer for me?” she joked along with her tears. “Oh, I’m so embarrassed, at who do I owe such an honor?”

“I’d be able to rise a whole cheer just for you!” he guaranteed, putting his arms around her shoulders. “Have you ever imagined the whole Canada vibrating for you? The audience waving the national flag, with synchronized applauses, a chorus screaming _“Izzy! Izzy! Izzy!”_ ”

Bella could imagine the scenario. Between jokes and jocose tones, they were having that dialog that made no sense for the people around them.

“But how would you do that if you’re probably jumping and doing poses?”

“A king’s got his ways.”

She smiled, swinging her head. She loved being able to talk about that dream and was glad to be able to meet Jean to speak about her feelings and reaffirm once again that she wouldn’t give up hon her dream. In her own way of thanking him, she put her arm over Leroy’s shoulder and, united like that, they kept on their way, letting their random conversations crossing through the cold night.

.:.

The Yang family arrived at the Royal Skating Center, surprised by the sheer quantity of people that the regional competition attracted. Isabella’s curious eyes searched in the different flags the one that indicated her city and their participants. Jean was one of the three regional athletes of the junior category fighting for a chance of getting a spot in the Canadian Figure Skating Championship, besides seventeen other skaters. Taking the amount of competitors and their performances, another two competitions were bound to happen to sort the best. Bella hoped that JJ kept up his game and scored enough to classify without having to try again.

It was weird to see Leroy, who was always in a good mood and prone to talk, gloomy like he was during the last days. He couldn’t keep up with jokes for long and his stare was blank and vague most of the time. Yang could swear that she saw him tremble as he tied his shoelaces the last she met him, and the same could be said for his knees. When she asked him if everything was alright, he laughed and shrugged it off, letting her go to the ice. In the afternoons that anticipated the competition, she could see him falling more than he used to, and the same steps that used to be his specialty were made with difficulty. What was wrong with Jean?

Mom and daughter sat down, close to the rink. In groups of five, the skaters were allowed to use the ice to warm up, where they risked their most difficult jumps, be it to train or to impress the crowd and the judges. Isabella was anxious and at the same time apprehensive to see Jean, but the groups came in and out, and when they were all done, JJ was nowhere to be seen.

“Am I seeing it right or Jean didn’t enter the rink?” If Rita, the most observing one in her family, noticed it too, then something very wrong was going on.

Isabella left the bleachers, excusing herself to the other moms, and she ran to where the organizational team was concentrated. Someone there should be able to explain.

Fortunately, Nathalie Leroy was taking care of some clipboards and people when Izzy saw her. She approached her at the same time as Alain - and JJ’s father worried gaze didn’t helped to calm her down.

“Miss and Mister Leroy, where’s JJ?” she asked, forgetting the good education that said her to greet other people first.

Alain looked at his wife before answering the girl. There was no sense in hiding it from her, since she was just a good friend to their son.

“JJ’s a little nervous, it’s a thing we call anxiety, and we don’t know if he’ll be able to perform today.” Nathalie closed her eyes. It was too much to deal with at once and she couldn’t even be with her son.

Isabella didn’t know what anxiety was, but it seemed to be really bad.

“But he trained so hard just for today…”

Ever since they started to talk she had been curious to watch her friend performing in a competition, with cheering and points. They talked so much about their passions shared in the rink, that thinking about Jean not being able to participate was something that made her feel desolated.

Noticing the girl’s gloomy mood, Alain thought that maybe letting her see his son could make them feel better. At least, as a friend, she could comfort him.

“Would you like to see him?” The possibility of being able to see him made she look at mister Leroy with much interest. “He’s at the private changing room, right after the male one” he pointed at its direction. “I think JJ will like to see you.”

Isabella looked at Nathalie before going away, waiting for her authorization. Smiling gently, the woman consented:

“You can go, I’ll tell your mothers.”

Thanking her, Yang ran to the end of the corridor, her neon soles squeaking against the ground. She only stopped running when she saw the closed door where Jean was supposed to be and she didn’t wanted to scare him.

Opening the door calmly, Izzy entered carefully, searching for Jean’s presence in what appeared to be an empty room. If it wasn’t for the brief agitation hidden behind a locker, she would have assumed she got in the wrong place.

JJ shrinked even more as her calm steps got closer to him. Noticing that they belonged to Isabella made him feel relieved, at the same time that it worsened his desire to cry. He didn’t wanted to be a disappointment to another person he liked so much.

“JJ, what happened?”

He looked down, covering his ears with his hands, not wanting to hear the girl’s worried voice. The gesture, however, wasn’t enough to contain the internal voices, pulsating the most varied kinds of commentaries and judgements; he was a real shame, a coward, someone who would never become a good skater. Why should he waste his time entering that rink? Why was he wasting his time trying to make his skating style happen? Why hasn’t he simply tried to follow the way his old coaches told him? He was a joke, an offense to every real skater out there, to his parents, to his family, to Isabella.

“Is there any way I can help?” Yang’s voice timidly entered his mind, dodging the words “shame” and “joke”, contorting its way between an condemnation and other, making itself heard. “Jean?”

He took some time to understand that the cold skin touching his hands belonged to Isabella. The girl, too, got surprised when she saw that his nails were bitten to the point of turning into flesh, and that they were shaking as if Jean was cold.

“I’m sorry” the boy asked. She couldn’t understand why.

“What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything…”

“You came here to see me and I’m not going to skate” he replied, his voice coming out in a whisper. “I made you lose your time, your family, my family…”

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault, everyone has a bad day.”

“This day can’t be today.”

Not knowing what to do, she sat on the floor on a space right at Jean’s side. He was still shrinking in place, but seemed less tense with her at his side. As a way to offer him some comfort, Isabella put her arm over his shoulder, imitating the hug he always offered her. Little by little, Leroy gave in and accepted it, nuzzling better in the warm hug.

They kept silent during what seemed to be forever, until the announcement of the competition starting. The first notes indicated the start of each program and it was the crowd reactions that indicated the status of each skaters. Taking the intensity of the applauses in consideration, the one right now seemed to be doing just fine.

“I wanted to be like you” JJ said after all this time spent silent. “Not giving up even when the sky falls, you know, the things you said.” Isabella hugged him tighter when she heard more applauses from the outside. “But I can’t. I don’t even know how I got there.”

“You got there because you deserved it, JJ” she comforted him the best she could. “No one would have gotten all those medals and trophies if they didn’t.”

“I was lucky.”

“Well, then those were _very lucky_ ten years, don’t you think?” Undoing the hug, Isabella made him look at her. “Jean, why do you think that all of a sudden they don’t mean a thing? It was you who won them!”

The blue eyes were opaque, staring at Izzy, but not seeing her at the same time. The halp opened lips were dry and trembled with his want to speak.

“I don’t know…” he sadly confessed. “I don’t know why, but I can’t see sense in anything, now. The medals are trash, the trophies are a mistake, I’m not capable… I never was…” He couldn’t keep on with what he was saying, the hastened breathing cutting his rational line. “If I’m smart enough, there’s time to give up” he explained what his mind made him believe. “It’d be stupid for me to go there.”

“Who told you so?” Isabella asked, worried. JJ pointed to his head as an answer. “Well, it was no fool or wise that could be your enemies, and they can’t be” she pointed in conviction. “It’s all in your mind, you said so. They’ll only stop you if you let them to.”

Jean-Jacques could understand, but not enough to make himself convinced.

“JJ, what do you feel when you step on the ice?” The announcer outside was talking about the end of the first group.

It wasn’t hard to remember, his favorite part was the sound of the blades scratching the ice. With closed eyes, it was easier to remember it all: before his presentation, the public kept silent long enough for him to hear his skates making the best sound in the world. It was always cold on the rink, an eternal winter, no matter the climate outside. When the music started, his body seemed to move on its own, in the same rhythm as the notes. Most songs were compositions he grew listening to thanks to his parents, especially during long trips to visit his huge family. The CDs of his favorite compositions could be replaced, but he knew their order by heart. No trip was complete without that sequence, a mixture of the most diverse musical genres that went from the classics to the most mainstream pop songs. Jean was always catching himself dancing to them all, and when he couldn’t remember the choreography anymore, he improvised another. He wanted to, someday, create the perfect song for a program, show the world how his style worked…

He opened his again when he thought about it, almost getting surprised when he saw his own face reflected in a red hand mirror. Isabella, behind it, waited for him in silence.

“What…?” was the only thing Jean could ask.

“What do you see here, JJ?”

The answer was too obvious for him to talk out loud.

“I’m not understanding, Bella…”

“Look closely!”

He looked and saw part of his eye, maybe the nose… The mirror was too small to reflect it right.

“Come on, don’t tell me your majesty can’t see his royal face just because it’s a plebeian mirror!”

Jean half smirked with that joke.

“Well, I do try, but it’s hard to see something, look at the size!”

Pretending to be angry, Isabella put her hands on her hips, laughing afterwards. She stood up quickly and searched for an open locker, where she could find a reasonably sized mirror.

“Here’s a mirror good enough, what do you think, your majesty?”

Moved by curiosity, Jean managed to be stronger than the desire to keep on sitting in a corner, getting up and walking with numb legs towards Izzy. There, right beside her, he could see in the narrow mirror more detail his and his friend’s face.

“Now’s good, huh? You look in the mirror and the _king_ looks back at you” she winked. That was another one of their inner jokes and it always made them laugh; JJ, ruling the ice, and Isabella breaking the walls, all the obstacles, in the neighbour rink.

“Will you keep on smashing walls towards your dream, Bella?” he asked through his reflection.

“I want to at least try” she also replied through it. “And it’s okay if I fail along the way. It’ll suck, and I’ll probably cry if I fail, but I don’t wanna cry forever.”

Jean didn’t wanted it either. Actually, he never thought of trying again if he failed, but new chances always seemed to motivate him more than the end.

He was still afraid, but…

“It’s okay if you don’t wanna try today, JJ” she ended up saying. “And it’s okay if you don’t want to try ever again, as long as this is decision’s not from here” she pointed to his head, the same that was haunting him.

The announcer was saying the names of the second group of skaters. Just a little more and his name was coming in - or not. Did his parents took his name out of the list already?

“Are you sure that I can try again if I fall?”

“That’s a thing only you can know.” This was not what Jean wanted to hear and she knew it. However, she offered her hand to her friend, trying to offer him the support that she was willing to show. “But I swear that I’d be able to raise a cheer for you!”

He laughed and Izzy joined him. He was still afraid and still wanted to cry, but he wanted to hear the ice getting sliced by his feet, the public’s silence, the song he chose with the help of his parents… He didn’t wanted to give up, not now.

“I can try.” Isabella answered that with a smile that made her braces fully visible. “My kingdom needs me!”

“Then let’s go, majesty Leroy” bowing, she pointed towards the door. “Your people’s waiting _le roi_.”

Jean, who didn’t wanted to cry again that day, saw himself crying in front of his parents when them both received him with open arms. Being the last one to skate, hearing the sound of the blades against the cold floor gave him a totally different emotion and when it was only when he noticed that fact that this could have been just a memory if he had given up. He didn’t wanted to keep figure skating as only a memory.

At the end of his program, his satisfaction wasn’t because of the applause or his high score; it was because he did it. He finished his program and was able to keep up his game, even if he lost the balance at the end of two jump. The wall that Bella was able to see breaking in hockey, Jean was able to see it in figure skating, too. He wasn’t a shame.

At the small podium, crying as he faced the cameras, Jean showed the world his proud face and showed off, with a smile, the reason of his pride during that afternoon:

“It’s JJ Style!!”

From the crowd, Isabella screamed.

.:.

The seller’s couldn’t understand Jean’s constant visits at the stationery, but they kept on selling him everything he wanted without questioning about the final use of all the paperboard and glitter. Between each visit, some asked about how excited he was to compete at the nationals in january, receiving a little more attention from the boy. He would love to speak about his plans and the jumps he trained and got better at, but he was way too busy with the lack of golden paper for his poster.

“You bought all of our laminated papers” the vendor informed him. This was unacceptable! “But we have silver laminated paperboard, what do you think?”

Jean already heard from Isabella that different metallic shades didn’t worked together, quoting the stylist mother, but she wouldn’t notice it from far, right?

“I’ll take it.”

Not even his parents were understanding the continuous visits to the stationery, suspecting that the boy’s allowance was flushed under the drain. Nathalie and Alain trusted in their son’s decisions, they were just curious to know what was occupying his attention over the span of three days, enough to steal all his free time when he wasn’t at school or training. The contact with Isabella kept on by messages and if it wasn’t for that, they would have suspected the friends had a fight.

What contributed to their distance were the harder trainings at Mileh Elementary hockey team, even if Isabella got benched. It was important for all the players to know how to play in case of a substitution, but for Jean it seemed like an ill fitting joke for the players to learn moves they wouldn’t use. Isabella wanted to die with that.

The eliminatories would begin that thursday against a visiting school. The game would be open to the community and that meant the Leroy family would be there besides the Yang family. The time was already combined between the parents, with JJ’s condition that their seats should be as close to the rink as possible. They all understood the preference for the privileged view, but Jean wasn’t preoccupied in justifying his exigence. Whatever his objective was, it was well locked inside his room, with authorized entry for his papers and glitter only. The glues were obvious for anyone who didn’t knew him, since manual job was never really his best.

At the game day, it still wasn’t.

As they put down the posters over the grids, JJ’s occupied more space than the six chairs that were reserved, an excess of bright colored cardboard that almost made its way to the adversary crowd. The parents and friends of the other players almost had no chance to expose their own jobs and wouldn’t dare to either, not after the glance of profound disdain and reprehension from that boy who, in his autorithary posture, looked like a royal.

Music and cheerleaders were present, welcoming the two teams in celebration and striving to raise the crowd. It was difficult to dispute attention when a single boy did it alone with his cardboard poster, even polluting the image of the crowd with such a saturation of concentrated colors.

As the team stepped to get in, Isabella, one of the last in the line, noticed the coache’s faces furrowing in curiosity, looking at her soon afterwards. Her teammates then began to express the same surprise with what they were watching, making her extremely curious to know what had been bizarre enough to shock both teams that way and what she had to do with this to be under the same attention .

When it was her turn to look at it with her own eyes, Isabella couldn’t contain her smile; from end to end she could see posters calling her the _Ice Queen_ in gold and silver, with glitter painted snowflakes over a pink and green background that would ruin any chroma key. Not so well done - but adorable - hockey sticks patches complemented Jean-Jacques's support in detail, to the liking of Leroy, who wore a colorful horn in his hands as he looked for her in the line.

“This boy alone is making all the crowd look at him…” the coach commented, surprised and a little bitter over Jean’s extra exposition.

“Of course he his” Isabella proudly smile. “Everyone always looks at the king.”

The coach couldn’t hear her and maybe it was better that way; the girl didn’t wanted to lose time giving explanations about any detail of those posters. Actually, she would want to have all of them in her hands at the end of the game.

Coming from a boy who had made and hung alone a total of twenty decorated posters, they were expecting any kind of exaggeration beyond that, but during the national anthem Jean behaved respectfully, as was to be expected. The expectation was no longer focused on the match, but about what Jean's next step would be, as he grinned in an almost scary way.

When the announcements were over, the players entered, greeted by applause from the crowd. Positioning themselves according to the combined strategy of each coach, they waited for the initial announcement and whistle to scratch their sticks on the ice and compete for a place in the final that was worth the ostentatious gold trophy, exposed only to cause more pressure.

_“We’re now beginning the match of the house team against the visit-”_

“Go, Bella!!”

Jean’s scream managed to, for some unexplainable reason, be louder than the voice on the speaker. The formation on the ice almost got undone as the twelve players stopped to look at the skater, confused.

“Go, Bella!!” he repeated, blowing the horn afterwards. Jean didn’t needed to raise a crowd, he alone was worth one.

However, there was still a doubt in the ar; _go where_ , if Isabella was still benched?

The first ten minutes were deafening - for Jean’s part. Both the Mileh fans and the visitors lost their cheerleading forces, giving up their horns to watch the boy run from one side to another, drawing attention to the posters as he yelled and waved his arms unabashedly, shouting at the only female player outside of the ice, sitting on the bench just behind the protection wall. Hidden from everyone's eyes, Isabella laughed, half excited, half entertained by the support. She still didn’t understand why he tried so hard to scream by her name, knowing about her position as a benched player, but she was still fulfilled. She would certainly make cost of blood and sweat on his part worth it as soon as they let her play as a starter at the next opportunity.

Seeing the number seven of her team getting dispensed by the captain, she noticed that her next opportunity would be right now.

“Yang, enter before your _drama queen_ friend drive us all crazy” the coacher ordered, bloodshot eyes full of wish to kill Jean.

“Drama _king_ ” she laughed, putting on her helmet and protection mask before getting in.

His parents had already given up trying to persuade Jean to sit down, when Lily screamed, pointing to the ice with the entrance to the thirteenth shirt. The YANG written on the back only worsened the intensity of Leroy's screams, the most exaggerated and passionate supporter ever seen, perhaps on all Canadian soil.

As he imagined and even dreamed so many times, Isabella playing was amazing, but a wonderful and frightening surprise, too. Though covered with the thick protective equipment, she still looked very small and unprotected, yet she advanced with an aggressiveness that made anyone who went over her path worry. The tip of her stick scraped the ice from side to side, surrounding the disc and hitting the blade of other players' skates, both the rival team and Mileh’s, making JJ understand why Bella's fame was so strong among both her colleagues of the same age and her seniors.

Being the only one to surround the disc, the support of the wingers was almost dispensable, throwing the two players to the lateral of the beacons, trying to block the vision of the goalkeeper in preparation for Yang’s attack. Scared over the offensive and direct attack, a central player of the visiting team threw herself alongside Izzy, taking control of the disc and hurling it against the fence. The impact smashed the shoulder pad and the side of the helmet, scratching the wall. In the crowd, JJ's voice wavered when he saw such aggressiveness in that fall, and for a moment he rested his hand on his chest, holding his heart as worried as the owner himself. Shouldn’t that be against the rules or something?

However, with the same aggressiveness with which she had been tossed aside, Yang thrusted the blades into the ice, propelling her body towards the girl, making her regret having interfered with her play. Shouting, putting out the rage over that move, she lifted up her stick, bringing it back forward in a speed that whipped the air in a whistle, crossing the front of the player with a _slap shot_ that almost counted as an infraction.

Disc taken from the rival team, the two wingers advanced to take possession of the disc, returning it quickly to Isabella, thirsty to change the zeroes on the scoreboard. Beside the stick, she swung her body like a pendulum, striking those who tried to approach her with the shoulder pads. She was ready to show in the last minutes of the first time why she deserved to be there.

From the bleachers, Jean kept shouting, vibrating, cheering, and despairing for the next seven minutes, and with a few seconds remaining from the first time, the home team's thirteen shirt slammed her stick into the rubber disk, raising ice shards along with her shot that tossed the disc straight into the goal, marking the first point of the game.

Finally Mileh’s crowd vibrated, no more than Jean and Isabella who, with the stick raised over her head, commemorated the point and dedicated it to her friend, even if she was the only one to know that.

“Izzy! Izzy! Izzy!” he started again after the announcement of the end of the first round and, at that time, the present families already gave up on trying to understand Jean-Jacques Leroy. If they couldn’t handle him, the only options was to join the teenager and what started as a solo effort, now echoed through the half that belonged to the house team.

Over the wall, Isabella couldn’t pay attention to her coach’s words anymore, smiling excitedly and profoundly grateful for the chorus that shouted her name.

_“Have you ever imagined the whole Canada vibrating for you? The audience waving the national flag, with synchronized applauses, a chorus screaming “Izzy! Izzy! Izzy!”_

She didn’t needed to imagine anymore; even if it wasn’t the national crowd, Isabella could feel in that moment that the whole world was screaming her name through JJ’s voice.

.:.

Isabella's Christmas gift was the authorization to accompany the Leroys to the Canadian Figure Skating Championship in january. At first, they were against letting their daughter travel with the family, who was very busy in preparing Jean and still having to deal with the small children, but the girl was such a frequent and special presence in the Leroy’s home that, in the words of Alain himself, was already part of the family. Overwhelmed by the affection of her daughter, Lily and Rita gave in, not without first alerting Izzy to behave, letting Nathalie and her husband free to berate her in any situation that might upset them.

The trip to Toronto was fun and a real mess, with JJ and his dad singing along to Katy Perry at the top of their lungs while Nathalie tried to talk with Isabella about the city hosting the competition. Amélie was the world's quietest creature in her baby seat, and Pierre only laughed all the time at his father's performances, turning his attention away to sleep.

Toronto was impressive by the structure of its buildings and being a urbanized city for those who were accustomed to live far from the great metropolis. The Leroy couple, unlike their children, lived in the city during their years as professional competitors and revealed the desire to return, depending on the proposals that Jean could receive as he grew up in the senior category. The innocent remark, while being a positive note about the son's future, however, silenced JJ from his singing, a detail only perceived by Isabella. Concern crossed her heart and she was afraid to see him in a crisis like the first time she saw him skate.

Fortunately, he seemed to be very excited with the city tour, after being properly hosted in his uncle’s house by mother side. Nathalie's family was very entertaining and guided everyone through the touristic points, taking countless photos as souvenirs, and in all the photographic records, Jean showed off an enviable photogeny. If he was not a skater, he could easily be a model, Isabella had no doubt.

With the first day going so smoothly, it was a surprise to Bella - and a concern for Nathalie and Alain - when, during the training in the next day, Jean was unable to complete any of his choreography cleanly. The choreography didn’t flow well, the exit to the jumps was coarse and when his father called attention to the son's lutz, Jean could no longer skate, his breath racing with despair in such a way that the parents feared to see the son having a heart attack in the middle of the rink.

Nathalie was talking to her brother about her son while Alain fed Amélie, and Pierre was dozing on the sofa in the living room. Although he understood their nervousness with their son's second anxiety crisis in just a month, the girl's concern was only Jean for the time being. Since they had gone back to the house they were staying, he found himself in the room with his brother, staring fixatedly at the ceiling.

All by himself, Jean could see the blank wall like a big screen where all the choreographies of the parents were projected. What he once watched with excitement and admiration, now tormented him. The applauses for Alain and Nathalie Leroy seemed to be directed at the negative judgments he had about himself, celebrating each topic with passion, but also further reinforcing the defects the boy saw in himself;

 _Weak_ \- applause.

 _Not enough_ \- the crowd screaming.

 _Shameful_ \- even stronger applause.

 _Unable_ \- his parents cheering with open arms.

“JJ? Can I come in?”

Once again Isabella’s voice went right over his thoughts, burning that film in his memory and bringing him back to reality. Jean was still laying down on the bed when he waved with his head, authorizing her to come in.

In silence, she approached the bed, sitting at Jean’s side. She noticed the blue eyes still fixated on the ceiling and she decided to look too, laying down to mimic him.

Just like last time, the silence dominated for a long time. Isabella wondered what JJ saw reflected on that ceiling and if, once again, it was projections by his traitorous mind. How could he sabotage himself like that? Was there nothing she could do to help?

“My parents were the best, when they competed in pairs” Bella turned her face to JJ, who was still looking up. “Did you know that? They were the main national champions in pair skate over the course of five years.” That was, fact, astounding. “Then I was born and they traded it all for the family.”

“That’s a cool story” she praised, not knowing even if that's what she was supposed to do. “My mothers met at New York, got married after five years, and after three more they decided to adopt me” she shared part of her family story, too.

After hearing that, Jean got silent for a while longer, seemed to be searching in his fears words to express what he felt.

“Have you ever felt like you weren’t good enough for your mothers?”

Isabella stared at him in shock.

“No! Is that how you feel?” He ended up shrinking with his friends reaction. “I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to upset you… I’m just surprised that you think that way. Your family loves you lots.”

“I know that.” Jean’s fear wasn’t the lack of love, but something bigger. “But they threw away their careers because of me, they didn’t had the age to retire when my mother got pregnant, they sacrificed years where they could still make history for my cause… Then I was good at skating when I was three and everyone called me a prodigy, just like my parents. Then turning around to see her, JJ made clear with his eyes all the anguish he felt. “But what if I’m not that good? What if I never become like them? Wouldn’t my parents have lost everything if I turn out to be worth of nothing?”

“Your parents didn’t lost a thing, JJ.” Isabella’s opinion was sincere. “They support you because they love you and you have talent, not because you skate like them. They’d still support in anything that would make you happy, like guitar!” Isabella based on her own experience with her mothers; while Lily worked with accountability, Rita was a stylist and managed the local fast shop store. To them, it didn’t matter what the daughter wanted for the future, as long as she was happy with that choice. “You don’t need to pay them with medals, as if you owned them something…”

Isabella made sense, just like before. Even if it was hard to accept, he valored the words and would try hard to remember them when necessary.

“Everyone compares me to my parents” he was referencing the sports journalists and specialists. “And if I’m not like them, I think I’ll shame them.”

“You don’t need to prove anything to those people, whoever they are” she confirmed what Jean already knew.

“I know, I guess” he sighed, staring back at the ceiling. The images reflected on it were now his own nightmare. “But when there’s a big event, like the Championship, they’re always there, I even dream with that.” Isabella was the first to hear that confession. “Everyone laughs or stares at me with reprehension, judging me…” With the hand raised, Jean seemed to be trying to grasp something. “They look down on me and I only notice that because I’m always ending up falling in the podium.”

The sensation of the fall only stopped when Isabella held his suspended hand, attracting with the gesture Jean’s attention. It was weird to see her there, away from his dream, being… Real.

“If you fall, we’ll hold you” she guaranteed with a smile. “We all will. I swear, JJ.”

In his nightmares, Jean always woke up before reaching the ground. It was a huge relief to know now, awaken, what waited for him at the end.

.:.

After the positive result in the Championship, guaranteeing the gold in junior men's category and the cover of a local sports magazine, the attention on Jean was more and more massive. Both the family of the skater and his friend Isabella were apprehensive with such demand, as the interest of the media increased, the more the discomfort of Jean with the sport that loved grew. Aware of this disorder, the Leroys sought psychological counseling for their child, taking care for his anxiety to be an increasingly less frequent problem.

Separately, Isabella was looking for a way to help JJ as well. She already knew of his preoccupation with the opinion of others and the inferiority complex that always overthrew him, in addition to the enormous pressure of having the surname of two great Canadian skaters. What could she do to keep those issues from reaching him so easily?

She thought about doing research on Victor Nikiforov, after all, with him being such a successful skater since always, there should be some secret to deal with the fame without losing all his silver hair, but she gave up on the second magazine, a waste of money. It was obvious how good he was, how perfect in his golden collection of conquests, and Jean did not need a god as a model, or he would end up having an even worse crisis when comparing himself with him. No, no, there must be someone easier, more reachable, someone Jean could relate to - human, preferably.

As she looked into the sport sites, she saw a lot of older and respected skaters in the scene, who dragged along with them tens of thousands of admirers, which did not serve the purpose of her research at all, which was to help a skater with at least one year in the junior category from the front. How could any of them help?

Scrolling down the news feed, she came across a side note announcing the newest hired skater from Celestino Cialdini, JJ’s last coach before the boy decided to return to Canada and, out of sheer curiosity, decided to give the news a chance.

The news was only a small note, which was expected, informing of a boy called Phichit Chulanont from Thailand who was now under his professional tutelage:

_“...the boy who’s sixteen alone left behind his homeland, alongside coach Satsuki Miramoto, to apprimorate his techniques with Cialdini, responsible for the japanese champion Yuuri Katsuki. There is much to look for in his debut in senior category and Chulanont seems to be equally excited:_

_“It’s an honor to be able to train with Ciao Ciao! I hope I’m able to be worth the trust that both he and the people in Thailand put on me!” - were the declarations of the new skater this season._

_We are also anxious to watch your performance.”_

Right under the news, there was a photo of Phichit smiling with the contract in hands, having the Thai flag as background, illustrating the end of the text. Isabella found him adorable - so cute! - and even in written text, he transmitted joy and excitement.

Watchful about the close age gap between Chulanont and JJ, she wondered if this was the skater she could draw inspiration from to help Jean. It would be great to see his friend as excited as the rookie, and even more wonderful to Leroy if, the following year, he launched himself as a senior with such conviction.

She returned to the image and realized it was credited to a relatively new account, on Instagram, that belonged to the skater. It should be, at least, interesting. Curious, she took the phone out of her pocket and searched for the app, where she filtered in _phichit+chu_ in the search.

Nothing had prepared Isabella for Chulanont’s sucess in that photo-driven social network. The same image that illustrated the news read earlier had more than twenty thousand likes and mass comments in English and Thai and, if she was not mistaken, Italian, too! How could he?

The caption that accompanied the news photo had the same text written in two languages and thanked Celestino's confidence, Satsuki and attributed all his success to the support of his family, his fans and Thailand, as if the whole country was a single entity. That statement seemed to be a huge success with its unbelievable twenty-four thousand followers and reflected positively on the skater's confidence, enough for him to venture into a new continent and invest in his career. Isabella wanted to know how and what she needed to do for the same thing happen with Jean!

Following Chulanont was inevitable. He was extremely adorable and soon Yang's heart was conquered by the pure smile, the admirable patriotism and his stupid photogeny. Phichit's photos were as varied as possible, though they all revolved around his personal tastes. His connection to _The King and The Skater_ was remarkable, as was his willingness to project the image of the king in love with skating in himself. Captions of what would be the movies song lyrics were quoted in his pictures of him jumping and, when he took casual photos on tours around Bangkok, tags declaring his love for the motherland were spot on. It was no wonder people seemed to love him.

“That’s called marketing, sweetie” Lily explained. “It’s the best way to project a product or image and create in the person that sees it, the desire to have it.” It seemed a little complicated to Izzy. She didn’t thought that people _desiring_ Jean was a good idea. “Your mother must have a Kotler’s book somewhere, but I think it’s a rather boring subject for a girl your age.” Lily took away her glasses and stared at her curiously. “Why the sudden interest, young lady?”

“I want to help JJ to gain more confidence, just like this boy!” she explained, showing her Phichit’s profile. “He has tons of fans and always thanks them for their support! I think JJ would have more confidence in his work if he had followers, too.”

Lily smiled, happy at her daughter’s gesture.

“Wait for your mother, Rita will help you with that.”

Izzy couldn’t wait for it!

.:.

Jean looked at his photo, laughing on the championship podium, and then looked at Isabella. He still did not understand that a profile on Instagram - one he would not even have access to - could help him, but he swore he was struggling not to disappoint his friend and her initiative in assisting him.

“Alright, explain it again” he asked, for the fourth time.

“This will be your fan club’s profile! I’m gonna post photos of you training, walking in the city, I dunno, all kinds of stuff! The intention is to make people curious and for them to start to follow it, bringing fans!”

He couldn’t see what would be so fun about seeing him walking through the streets, but he wouldn’t say it out loud right now.

“And why “JJ Girls”?”

“Niche market!” She jumped with her phrase, empathizing with the gesture how important it was to embrace a segment. “My mother Rita explained that a company always aims their marketing at the public they want to attract. Companies can enlarge your marketing for it to reach all kinds of people, it does massive divulgation, like in stores, where they offer adult and kids fashion, in masculine and feminine sessions! The differential of the company is that they also offer cosmetics once in a while and that raises attention; if it raises attentions, it attracts people and we buy it!”

“But I don’t sell clothes.” Nothing of that made sense.

“You’re not going to sell clothes, JJ!” Isabella laughed, still wanting to make herself understood. “Look, all that we want to do is the same as a clothes store, but using you as the main attraction; bringing attention to you, your tastes and achievements, it’ll be easier to attract fans that will be more than happy to support you in your career!”

“So marketing’s not something only clothing stores do?” Little by little, things were starting to make sense.

“No, you dummy…” she laughed, still holding the phone in her hands.

“And it being a fan club for girls is the niche you’re speaking about?” Izzy agreed.

“When a company notices that they won’t affect all the people that they want to, it’s necessary to decide which group is worth the most to direct their marketing and these groups are called niche!”

“And why girls? Victor Nikiforov doesn’t have fangirls only…”

“Forget Victor Nikiforov and focus on Phichit Chulanont!” she called his attention with an angry face. JJ was scared to see her nervous. “Do you think none of them has marketing? Everything’s got marketing!” She reinforced Rita’s words. “And according to figure skating school data, it’s mostly girls of our age that search about it! Especially in junior competitions, were you belong, the ones who watch it the most, besides the families, are girls!” Suddenly, a light shone on Jean’s ideas.

“Girls are the niche market!”

“That’s right!” celebrating, Isabella jumped repeatedly. “Then we’re gonna raise their attention first and foremost! Then, as you grow, we’ll expand your image!”

“Until I become as famous as a clothing store” and with that joke, they ended up laughing. “Fine, I accept trying it out. When do we start?”

Raising Lily’s camera, Isabella smiled. If Jean took a while to understand her plans, then he was done with the first steps already.

“What about now?”

Jean got paralysed.

“What do I have to do?”

“Ah, I dunno, just do your warm ups, jump a bit, it’ll only be a test, mom’s gonna help me at home, later…” she observed, adjusting the camera’s focus the same way Lily taught her.

“So I just… Skate?” he tried, going to the middle of the ice. Tense as he was, he doubted that he’d be able to give a single step without looking like a rusted robot.

“Do the best that your JJ style can” she encouraged, not taking her eyes out of the camera focus. “Whenever you want, majesty.”

With the joke and the always welcome company, Jean felt the tension drain along with a laugh; it was in that moment of relaxation that Isabella gave the first click of many that she would do to JJ Girls.

.:.

Summer vacations were coming and they looked great for Isabella's work with the fan club. Although JJ also gave his opinion on the images, she was the one who decided which would be posted and little by little she was managing to edit them without having to rely on her mother. It was fun to be a part of it that being JJ Girls' president was almost a hobby.

The girls' interest, however, began for a frustrating and somewhat annoying reason for Isabella; the good looks of the Canadian. Many praised his beautiful eyes, his skin tone, posture, the beautiful hair and everything else that was worthy of a compliment. She asked her mother if _this_ was the kind of attention expected with such a niche, which Rita confirmed, amused by her daughter's annoyance.

“Soon you’ll be filtering the profile and they’re gonna get predictable, which decreases the harassment, trust me.”

Isabella hoped so.

Glad to see her son's excitement with that idea, Nathalie ended up giving up one of the Royal's smallest rinks for exclusive use of JJ and Izzy, who occupied it during every afternoon when she didn’t had to attend the hockey club - a passion she would never let aside - taking turns with Leroy and his spins. In that increasingly close relationship, Jean also found himself interested in photography, and soon Isabella became the focus of his lenses, a fact she ignored for Jean's own health.

Soon he also learned to take selfies, and when he finally took the initiative, after two months since the birth of the JJ Girls and in the midst of the summer vacation, the Jjleroy!15 account made its debut. On the same day, the fan club account totaled two hundred and fifty followers, splitting a double celebration that led the Leroys and Yang to a celebration at a local pizzeria.

With the followers of the JJ Girls shifting their attention to the skater's personal profile, the two accounts soon became complementary, growing side by side like a tightly knit couple. Questions to Jean were answered exclusively through the fan club and Isabella felt like she was going to die when, in a photo of Jean in the middle of a lutz, Phichit Chulanont asked with laughing emojis if it was okay for a boy to be part of the fan club.

_“Everyone’s accepted in JJ’s kingdom! You’re more than welcome, @phichit+chu!!”_

Being followed by the lord of the selfies made Jean's personal profile go from five hundred to two thousand followers in twelve scary hours. He couldn’t deal with the tireless notifications locking his phone and Isabella didn’t bother to hold the uncontrollable laughter. She never thought it would work so well in such a short time!

The likes in both profiles and then sincere compliments (even the overestimated ones), ensured a slight improvement in Jean's confidence, to the happiness of Isabella and the rest of the Leroy family. It even secured the interest of people who had never been curious about the sport, like one girl from the same city as them:

_@desiree_desiree: Needing a queen, your highness? ;)_

Well, the interest didn’t seem to be in the sport per se.

The unfortunate comment had been on Jean's personal profile, in a picture of him using one of the paper crowns of a fast food chain he visited with Yang last weekend. The photo had even been taken by her while they were doing one of their pranks and he had no intention of stepping up like royalty, or to be looking for another.

Not just that photo, but _every single one_ , be them personal or fan club photos, with comments full of exclamations and suspicious emoji use. What did that girl want?

“I guess she’s a new fan!” JJ celebrated and Isabella rolled her eyes with that. A fan, sure… Fan of Jean-Jacques “beautiful eyes ;)”.

Parallel to that, Alain found that complementary physical exercises could strengthen his kid’s muscles and help in his transition to the senior category in the subsequent year, which included lifting weights in a routine that began to mix bodybuilding and training, which made the friends see each other less and less on the final weeks of their vacation. It wasn’t a problem at all, since with JJ's entry into high school, she also had the girl's senior year in elementary school and she wanted to do her best to start at a new school with a trophy in her hands. That year would be hers, she was feeling it.

Or maybe she wasn’t really feeling it right.

On a September morning, Jean decided to call Isabella before school started. Having seen him the day before, she wondered what made him call so early.

“How can I help, your majesty?”

 _“Good morning, bella!”_ Yang never knew if JJ’s intention was to compliment her or flirt with her when he used that nickname. _“I have an invitation for you!”_

“At seven AM? I hope it’s good stuff” she warned him as she tied her yellow all stars.

_“It is, you’ll love it! It has to do with hockey and the fanpage!”_

Now he had her attention.

“Where?”

 _“In my school, of course! Where else would I go without you?”_ Laughing at his drama, soon Isabella saw herself agreeing with him.

“Fine, but I’m going just because I don’t have club activities today. I’ll tell my moms.”

_“I’ll be waiting!”_

After class ended, Isabella took a bus to Diamond High School, slowing down as she approached the institution. The front was huge and on top of that, frightening. She was surprised JJ didn’t had an anxiety crisis as soon as he saw the new school, she herself was almost having one.

Before she had the idea of turning back and leaving, Jean called her on the opposite side, approaching her as if he was starring in some silly movie, almost in slow motion, with his tanned skin shining in the sun, short hair shaking in the wind... Like a movie star. And like every star, the vision of perfection followed him just behind.

“Bella! We were waiting for you! I want you to meet someone!”

At the same slow pace, the girl approached shaking a whole kilometer of perfectly blond hair and blinking her huge lashes, framing the green eyes. Isabella, feeling half childish, thought she might have given up the glittery eyeshadow, at least for that day.

“So she’s the fanclub president, JJ?”

Everyone in Jean’s social circle called him JJ, but from her lips it sounded like an offense.

“The idea was hers!” Proud of his friend, Leroy shared it with excitement. “Ain’t that right, Bella?”

“Cool…” The girl complimented, without waiting for a reply. “I also follow the fanclub at Instagram, I’m an active member.”

“Bella, she’s my classmate in science and captain of the hockey team, Désirée.”

_Oh no._

“Recognize me from some post?”

Shaking her head and faking trying to remember, Isabella ended up lying.

“Sorry, I don’t think so… Seven thousand followers, you know how that is…”

“Oh, how sad!” lamenting, she raised her furrowed brows to Jean. “Seems like I’m not making enough of an effort!”

“Ah, no, probably I only let your name slip by, but all of the JJ Girls are very active, the profile’s only growing, no need to change a thing, you’re doing great!” Izzy soon corrected what she said. She didn’t want under any hipotesis to see even more comments from desiree_desire, or else she’d hit her hockey stick on her own face.

“If you say so…”

“Bella’s also great at hockey, she takes my breath away! It’s impossible to keep people quiet when she scores, the way she plays is insane!”

Désirée must have found Jean’s gesticulations to be funny, since she laughed openly over his narrative.

“Is he always exaggerated like that?” the girl asked Isabella, who didn’t care about hiding her discomfort with that insinuation about her capacity.

“It’s not, I’m really good, one of the best from my school.” Who the hell Désirée and her blond hair thought she was?

“Bella was the first to get the trophy of best centre-player in Mileh Elementary!” Jean boasted with pride.

“Free category.” She too had many reasons to be proud - her gaze said so.

“An ice queen!”

Désirée heard JJ's statement with wide eyes, almost jumping. A king speaking of another queen must have even sounded like a couple, which _shouldn’t_ happen. Isabella shook her head and her short black hair, trying to get rid of the thought. It wasn’t possible that people saw her friendship with JJ as something else, right?

“Well, it’ll be great to have your royalty in our hockey team next year!” The captain cheered on, dispersing the bad thoughts that existed only inside Izzy’s head.

“What do you mean?” Yang found the commentary to be weird, looking for Jean in search of explanations. “I’m not coming to Diamond next year, JJ.”

“You won’t say that when you see our team’s structure!” Désirée was convinced. Excited with the sport, she almost looked more like a decent human being.

Guiding Jean and Isabella over the school, they passed through the ample corridors until they reached the door to access the school rink.

“Brace yourselves for the magic…” the girl joked, letting the visitor come in.

In fact, Izzy couldn’t say that the school was out of question, not with that rink smelling like recent refurbishment and with wide covered bleachers. The lighting, the designs under the ice, everything was so beautiful and impeccable that she wanted to be able to invade that rink and scratch it with her skates from end to end.

“Haven’t I told you that you’d like it?” Jean commented, taking Isabella out of her trance.

“Don’t go on thinking that you convinced me that fast, majesty” turning to him, Izzy faked resistance. “I still have many schools to choose and I won’t go to this one just to make you company.”

“She discovered my plans, Désirée.”

“At least come watch one of our games! We’ll have a friend match at the end of the month, then you’ll see if we’re up your alley!”

Isabella wasn’t really that convinced considering the tone of the captain, but didn’t bothered with that.

“Maybe… It’ll be cool to put in the fanclub page the hobbies of our king besides figure skating” the conviction that she said that almost convinced her, but she would do so, yes, for science.

Just for science.

.:.

JJ Girls followers loved to see their king smiling on the bleachers of a hockey game. And what didn’t they loved? Fans proudly displayed their photos with Jean at every unexpected meeting, contributing to the fan club when Isabella couldn’t keep up with the Leroys on their journeys outside the city limits. In every city Jean went through, he drew behind a crescent number of followers, impressed with his ever-growing performance and keen to learn more about the career of Alain and Nathalie Leroy’s son, the fan club led by Isabella being the main source of information.

It was at the end of one of the exhaustive days of training in the hockey club that Isabella learned from Phichit's instagram that the Thai skater had met with Jean a few days before the junior world class qualifier that year in Vancouver. Apparently, Chulanont was there for a photo shoot and ended up bumping into Jean-Jacques, making sure to register the meeting with a commemorative photo, logically.

“The King and the Skater. Didn’t said who ;) @Jjleroy!15”

Isabella laughed at the pun and liked the photo, glad that Jean didn’t looked so anxious in the picture, on the contrary, his smile was satisfied and Phichit's aura was radiant. However, perhaps because of the Thai's custom of taking pictures, Leroy looked far less vibrant than his fellow sportsman. Chulanont had his always spontaneous smile, his trademark, no matter the place, but JJ ... Jean could be charismatic and was very lovely with his fans, but he didn’t had such a mark that registered him regardless of where he was. Maybe it was time to look for something that set him apart from others?

Conquered the score for the final in Moscow - why so far?! - the Leroys didn’t have much time to spare; back home, Nathalie advised her staff on Royal, since Amélie still depended on he, and Alain intensified his son’s training, impeccable in every sequence. Gold was definitely and deservedly his.

“Is Moscow too far, mom?” asked Pierre, watching his brother training beside Isabella.

“Very far, sweetie.” She got down to kiss her son’s head, before bringing Amélie to her lap.

“Maman, maman, look!” The little girl stretched out her fingers to her mother, opening the pointer and middle fingers in a V.

“V as in auntie Vivienne?” Nathalie said, nurturing with her daughter’s efforts. Agitated, the girl shook her head, repeating the gesture.

“No! Yang!” and turning to Isabella, she showed her chubby fingers, in the expectation that the girl would understand. “See?”

“And if you do it like that, it’ll be I from Isabella” she replied smiling, pointing up. Enchanted with the new possibility, Amélie started to switch between the initials IY.

“What are you thinking about the training so far?” Approaching the only spectators, JJ looked tired, but still happy. Pierre soon gave his brother a water bottle and Isabella offered a clean towel, smiling in encouragement.

“I don’t understand much about figure skating, but it’s the best I’ve seen you ever since we met!”

“Thanks!” he thanked, visibly touched. He was weirdly excited with the next competition, even without his mother’s support or Isabella’s encouragement this time.

“JJ! JJ!” called Amélie, directing her new discovery to the older brother. “Isabella Yang!”

“Oh, that’s amazing, Amélie!” Mimicking her, he asked for her approval. “Like that?” the girl’s reply was a laughter accompanied with applause. “What’cha think, miss Yang?”

“Stay like that, I want a photo!” she asked, taking her phone. Posing in front of Izzy, he let the initials in front of his chest and winked at the camera. “The king showing my initials… That’ll boost my hockey career.”

“JJ! JJ!” Amélie called again, passing through Alain’s when it came to talk to him. “Look!”

The plump little fingers were now hunched over, trying to imitate a J in each hand. Seeing his sister's frustration at not being able to do the letters so well, Jean made the gesture himself, improvising a pose that could break Amélie's crying face and make her laugh a little.

That sight, however, almost made Isabella knock down her phone, stunned by a sudden insight; that was it, the mark she had been thinking so much for Jean!

“JJ! Come here!” she shouted in despair, catching not only his attention but all of the Leroy’s as well. “Do that again!”

“Do what?”

“With the hands, the double J!”

Sharing a gaze with his parents, he resolved to obey. Excited, Izzy covered her lips with her gloved hands, murmuring what seemed to be the discovery of the cure of some illness:

“ _JJ Style_!”

“What?”

“That’s it, JJ! Your trademark! The JJ Style!” she shouted excitedly, trying to make him understand and join her. “Do that with your hands again and show us your war cry!”

Generally, Jean laughed when Isabella referred to it as a _war cry_ , but this time he couldn’t even do that.

“Ah, come, but really, JJ, trust me!” she begged, holding his cold hands. “If you somehow remember me in your program, do that with your hands and shout JJ Style!”

He just nodded before returning to his choreography work. Whatever that meant, Jean trusted Isabella enough to know that it would work.

.:.

Isabella was surprised when she saw a call from an unknown number on her phone. At first she thought about ignoring it, but, driven by curiosity, she gave the stranger a chance and answered the call.

“Hello?” she asked a little distrustful.

_“It’s me, Bella.”_

Unarmed by the uncomfortable tone of the person that called her, she didn’t knew how to answer for a moment.

“Aren’t international calls too expensive, JJ?” choosing a joke, she tried to break the melancholic atmosphere.

 _“I dunno, I’m using dad’s phone.”_ His voice was low and it seemed to tremble. He might be hiding.

“Where are you now, JJ?”

A small moment of hesitation and Isabella thought the call was cut short.

_“In the closet.”_

The silence was now from her part. What was she supposed to say? How did Jean ended up there?

“Can you tell me why?”

Maybe because of the call being from so far away, Yang couldn’t tell if the wheezing was because of the phone or if it was Jean crying. She didn’t want to consider the last option.

_“Bella, what do you really think of me?”_

It was the last option. _Damn!_

“You’re my best friend, I thought that alone said a lot.” She kept on hearing him sneezing on the other side of the line, wishing she could be there to hug him.

_“No one talks to me. I tried, but some smile and go away without saying a thing, others don’t even try to fake their expressions… I feel like they don’t want me close.”_

“Of course they don’t! You’re amazing this season, if they look at you like that it’s because they know you’re a threat!” she tried to encourage him, even if knowing that situation made her want to cry, too.

Jean went back to being silent and she didn’t knew if he was thinking through her words or if he was ignoring them completely.

 _“Almost everyone here talks with each other and I see many competitors visiting the city after training…”_ Isabella didn’t knew what to do with that piece of information. _“I always thought it was okay not to have many friends at school, since I dedicate a lot to skating, but I hoped to meet different people in the sport scene. Maybe I’m the problem.”_

“Of course you’re not, JJ… You’re an amazing son, a good brother and a great friend. How could you be a problem?”

Finally audible, the sobs echoed inside the cubicle where Jean was hiding, breaking Isabella's heart.

_“I don’t wanna be alone.”_

“But the way you talk about these people, even if you had company, you’d still be alone, ain’t that right? My mom Lily always says that if we surround ourselves with empty people it’ll be the same as being surrounded by nothing.” In Moscow, the sobs seemed to be alleviating. “Besides that, your dad’s with you and he’s worth way more than all the skaters that ignore you. Who dares to ignore the king?” alleviated, she heard his first laugh since the start of that conversation. “And we’re all here, cheering for you! Your mom, siblings, family, my family and the ten thousand JJ Girls followers!”

_“I’d be nothing without you…”_

“That’s not true… You’re the king, JJ, no one defeats you. Remember what I said? Your limits…”

 _“...are all in my head”_ he completed. _“I’ll try to remember it.”_

“Remember too that you’ve got a unique style and no one’s like you.” Isabella felt relieved when she heard Jean-Jacque’s laugh, sincere this time.

_“My JJ Style!”_

“That’s right! The world would fall in disgrace if it didn’t saw it!”

Inside the closet, Jean heard an agitation coming from the corridor and decided to end the call, before his father got inside the room and noticed something wrong with him.

_“Gotta go, Bella. Thank you very much.”_

“Whenever you need, majesty” Above any joke, there was sincerity in her voice. “Keep looking ahead.”

In the following days, Jean made Isabella's words a personal mantra and, whether they were so powerful or he alone attributed them some kind of power, Jean felt that he’d gone through two days of competition without any hindrance. No one was able to defeat him and nothing separated him from the top of the podium. Seeing the crowd cheer and the Canadian flag highlighted by his victory, he felt a mixture of emotions that he couldn’t contain inside of him. That sensation bubbled up in his stomach and began to rise, exploding in the well-known phrase, this time accompanied by fingers folded in the double J that Isabella urged him to do.

_“It’s JJ Style!”_

He hoped Izzy was awaken to watch him.

.:.

Isabella's school year was over, and with it her braces were gone, giving way to the colored contact lenses. Jean took a long time to get accustomed to the drastic difference from brown eyes to pale blue, and although he tried tirelessly to convince Yang that she was pretty anyway, the girl seemed irreducible with her choice. A new school, a new stage - that was how she faced her entrance into high school.

The mothers tried to reassure her about it, saying it was an absolutely normal school and with a totally boring routine, with the difference being with the subjects studied. For Isabella, the difference was much more evident, reflected in all the girls with long well cared hair and blessed by puberty. Isabella wasn’t as tall and curvy as her new classmates and this was bothering her too much. She just hoped she didn’t had any kind of discomfort on the hockey team.

She still had it.

Désirée was still dazzling with her perfect blond hair and eternal tan, just as all the other players and reserves looked like her Barbie collection in hockey uniforms. Uncomfortable, Isabella put on her helmet and waited to be called.

“Yang’s ready to enter the ice!” The team captain was cheerful. “That’s what I like to see!” turning back to the rest of the team, Désirée continued to talk. “Girls, Isabella Yang was the thirteen shirt at Mileh Elementary and shone so much she got a cover page in the regional sports magazine in june!”

Admired, they all applauded. However, Izzy was still uncomfortable.

“She’s the ice queen!!”

Behind the wall, Jean smiled openly. He was there to watch the aptitude test that the new players would do for the team and wanted to offer full support to Isabella.

“We’re lucky of having two members of royalty at our school,” Désirée raised her voice over the murmurs that were spreading around “but I gotta ask JJ to not disturb our girls, even your queen needs to concentrate.”

Both Jean and Isabella had a fit of nervous laughter with the scandalous interpretation of the captain about their relationship. Where did she got that? It could only be her head - her and the rest of the school’s. They did nothing to make that impression.

At the end of the day, school was very common, and taking Bella's still-present discomfort with her fellow model buddies, the routine of training and studies was the same. High school wasn’t really that exciting.

Perhaps the real emotions of this period weren’t supposed to happen at school, but in the situations surrounding it. One afternoon, when the entire class was quietly silent for an extremely annoying documentary on animal life, Isabella turned her attention from the Discovery Animal video to the outside, watching the slight shaking of the leaves in the trees, the roar of the lions, the cars passing by, the slow chewing of the giraffes, Jean-Jacques jumping as he waved…

Surprised, she had to look out a second time to make sure it was Jean, and being careful not to get caught by the teacher, Isabella nodded discreetly, not understanding what he wanted. Jumping, making circles in the air, and giggling at nothing, it was difficult for Yang to understand his intentions.

When he noticed he wasn’t able to make himself understood, Leroy took the backpack off and opened a blank sheet of notebook, scribbling what he wanted to say. Raising the drawn sheet above his head, he hoped to have made the design visible enough to be understood.

Squinting her eyes, Bella tried to decipher what those random circles meant. The precision of the drawing was terrible, his style was irregular and the five rings made no sense…

Isabella choked when she finally understood. Getting up, she dragged her table with a noise that took the concentration of everyone present, even waking those who took the silence as a chance to take a nap. The professor also jumped in his chair, worried with the student's agitation.

“Is everything alright, miss Yang?”

“I need to go to the bathroom!” she laughed running out of the class.

Not only her class, but also all the others he passed, had their attention drawn to Yang, whose laugh echoed through the corridors; he was going to the Olympics! JJ was going to the Olympics!

Outside, waiting in the same way, Jean-Jacques waited for his friend, running toward her as the girl crossed the main door and threw herself into his arms.

“You did it, JJ, you did it!!” Isabella celebrated the achievement as if it was her own. “I’m so happy for you!”

“Thanks, Bella, thanks!” he hugged her tightly to give back the same affection. “Thanks for believing in me!”

Neither Jean-Jacques Leroy not Isabella Yang understood why the whole school saw them as a couple.

.:.

As Rita tried to locate herself on the map, Lily searched the signs above their heads for a way to leave the lobby where the last female hockey game had taken place. The men's individual figure skating competition was already happening and Jean would enter the last group to present his free skate and, considering the time, it was close to happen.

Isabella was heartbroken, blaming herself for waiting so long to take a picture with the hockey team. If they’d left at the end of the game, they’d have enough time to find the right spot and no one would be losing their heads with the delay.

“Calm down, Izzy, we’ll find the way soon” Lily smiled when she noticed her daughter’s crying face.

Picking up the pocket mirror, Isabella pretended to be concerned about the appearance. She checked her swollen eyes and used her lenses as an excuse to justify their redness and retouched the red lipstick, partially eaten by her in the last fifteen minutes in pure nervousness.

When she no longer hoped to see the performance live, Rita called for her wife and daughter, waving alongside an Olympic guide.

“Lils, Izzy, the guide showed me the way!”

The first to hear the coordinates was Isabella, also responsible for leaving the mothers behind and running to the main rink, even under protest. Her badge gave special access to the kiss and cry, but she realized, as soon as she set foot inside the stadium, she didn’t have time for that anymore. The narrator already announced the entrance of Jean and, from the bleachers, she was able to see Nathalie and Alain orienting the son before the entrance.

JJ's debut in the senior category couldn’t be more tense; at the age of sixteen, and embarking on a new phase of his career, comments of the most varied kind had come and gone in the span of two days. Many were surprised by the performance of the short program, others thought it was a very high bet of his part to be there, aiming for a seat next to Victor Nikiforov on the podium.

Why always Victor Nikiforov? Isabella wished he _vanished_.

Even from a distance, Jean looked tense and it was possible to see his shrunken shoulders. She wished she arrived before, to joke with him, to encourage her friend, to cheer for him…

Wait, she could still cheer for him!

_“Kill them, JJ!!”_

The crowd, already waiting in silence, was attracted by the girl's aggressive cheer, standing out for being the only person standing on the bleachers. Even the local broadcaster focused on her face, as red as the Canadian flag, leaving at least four different commentators to make fun of it. However, the target of her support had heard the scream and, smiling everywhere because he didn’t know exactly where Yang was, Jean made sure that, yes, he was going to _kill_ them all.

His choice for the free skate was the unusual _When I Grow Up_ and no one dared comment on the song made by The Pussycat Dolls. And they couldn’t, even if they wished, for there would be no place to question the choice of a king. His people would set fire to that ice if such heresy were to occur.

On the rink, JJ incorporated the song as if it had been written for him. The jumps fit perfectly, especially in the agitated choruses, and the hip break when he decided to break the norm and skate just like a model in a straight line, made the crowd yell and sent shivers to Isabella. Everything in his posture was perfectly done, but his gaze was something he personally asked his friend to help him with; Jean wanted, in the king's own words, a killer look like hers. After laughing at what she thought was a joke and recovering from embarrassment, she did help him.

Now it was Isabella who needed to learn from him.

The end of the presentation raised even the fans from other countries, making it difficult for the narrator to announce Jean's departure and the verification of his score. Izzy wouldn’t have time to try to reach the Leroy family, so she was content to keep up with the best moments on the big screen. The thrill of seeing him skate so well, so _happy_ , overflowed her in tears, and when the score was announced, she kept it in her memory until the last skater did his performance. With Victor in the competition, a contest for gold was out of the question, but at least third place... Isabella put all her heart into the desire to see Jean on the podium.

“At least bronze, at least bronze…” Isabella begged with her hands. _At least bronze_.

The score went up, displaying the names of the skaters next to the thumbnail of their flags and the final score. Weeping, Isabella forgot to scream. The first place didn’t matter, not when Jean surprised everyone in his Olympic debut; the silver medal was his.

.:.

Diamond High School had a very interesting system with its players in hockey. Prioritizing the seniors, they sought to revoke the participation of the newcomers at specific times, replacing the titular players as time passed by. That system guaranteed participation of everyone involved and was a way of measuring their performances in the most varied types of clash.

Désirée was trusting the central position to Isabella, in her second year. The invitation had come before summer break, and every week during the rest period they met with the rest of the team to train. It was heartening to see how she was moving closer and closer to her dream of becoming a professional athlete, and by the age of sixteen, Isabella had allowed herself to dream of competing in the upcoming Winter Olympics.

Seeing Jean in the bleachers, looking anxious for his friend's entrance, she smiled. In their spare time, they talked and made grand plans about their futures. Sometimes they painted this scene too exaggeratedly, other times they drew the most improbable and scraped them, just to laugh a little, like the time they dreamed of JJ skating to the sound of his own theme song, composed by his favorite band, the Canadian Spirit. Anyway, the only thing right for the future was to stay together forever, regardless of the circumstances.

“Tonight’s Yang’s debut, no?”

Izzy’s name and the _way_ too interested tone in the voice took Jean away from his sweet memories to the bitter teenage reality.

“She’s a cutie, they say she wrecks the ice.” Jean-Jacques didn’t like a bit how this sounded.

“She could wreck my home whenever she wanted to.”

When the boy was ready to demand an explanation and start a fight, the announcement of the game echoed from the speakers and filled the rink, ejecting Jean from where he was sitting. Still trying to position himself, he cheerily applauded the names of the other players, eagerly waiting for the one who would make him lose his composure and shout at his lungs his wholly partial cheer. Unlike Mileh, in Diamond everyone seemed very annoyed with his dedication to exalting only one player, but by then he no longer cared.

_“Kill them, Bella!!”_

He hoped that was enough to get the rude boys' attention back as a warning sign that Isabella Yang had a friend more than willing to interfere, if that was the case. Not that Izzy needed protection or anything.

“Can you stop yelling at least for awhile?” somebody called his attention. The screams were making effect, but in other people. “Not even your girlfriend should be handling it anymore.”

JJ halfway stopped clapping. Not knowing whether to correct the stranger or confirm that yes, Isabella was his girlfriend, he sat down, keeping himself in silence. Maybe he should keep it quiet and try to ignore the insinuation that made his heart fasten as if he was in an artistic presentation.

The first two periods of the game were great, so fierce that JJ sometimes forgot to cheer, glazed in the aggressiveness that played both house players and visitors against the wall. The titular position seemed to make Isabella even more competitive and it was several times that he thought about running towards her when he saw her falling. The only thing that could reassure Jean-Jacques's worried heart was the hints Izzy gave in the intervals and pauses throughout the game, a guarantee of her health. _Thank God._

To Leroy, all the blows were wrong and although he had been accompanying hockey for some time because of Izzy, he always jumped or moaned with the sounds of sticks clicking and bodies colliding. After suffering from each fall, he looked around and measured the severity of the impact by the reaction of those who knew more than him; the public itself. Since no one ever expressed shock or fright by that war scenario - JJ thought they should - he tried to calm down and follow the game without harming the health of his sensitive heart when it came to Yang.

But Isabella wasn’t the only one thirsty for possession of the rubber disc. The opposing team had a center as good as her, with height and weight in their favor and a huge facility overcome Izzy. Even though Diamond's score was ahead - by very little - having the opposing team's number two marking her constantly _bothered_ her. She was almost losing focus of the object, having been called by the captain three times in the last fifteen minutes. She needed to keep herself concentrated, or she'd end up benched during the last period.

The savior for her head seemed to be pure impromptu and even if the choice could cost her participation at the end of the match, Isabella decided to cross the wingers position and take responsibility for the disc alone. Désirée tried to shout to stop her, but it was far too late. Frightened by Yang's murderous gaze from behind the protective mask, her teammates retreated, making room for Izzy... And the opponent's number two.

The impact caused by the shock of the two players, for the first time, shook the crowd; by the difference in physical structure between them, Isabella ended up much more impaired, crashing into the ice in a snap that frightened everyone present. The fall, even with the full protective gear, was not cushioned enough, and JJ seemed to watch Isabella's lean body in slow motion twice before stopping fully, sliding to the corner of the lane - like in a horror movie.

The buzz in the bleachers grew, as Yang remained stretched out. Paralyzed by the fear that something serious had happened, Jean couldn’t even blink. Should he do something? Get in the ice? Call for her?

He swallowed hard before raising his trembling hands towards his face. When he was feeling down, Isabella always called for him, reminding him to keep fighting. She’d never give up from a challenge that easily, he knew, maybe she just needed a reminder.

“Bella!!” he called in an oscilanting scream. The techniques were already preparing to go to the girl's aid, when Yang raised her arms in sequence, resting the hands on the floor to be able to raise up. With the crowd stirring again in applause, JJ was able to breathe in relief; she hasn’t given up yet.

However, although Isabella's will was to keep fighting with all her might, her body was had opposing plans, alerting her about her limits with immeasurable pains at the left foot. She tried to stand up for the first time and vehemently denied the help offered after the second failed attempt, but only in the third fall, Izzy admitted she wasn’t able to do it herself.

When she sat down against the wall and took off the mask, Jean knew from the tears that something really bad had happened.

.:.

The Yang house was drowned in a suffocating silence.

Rita and Lily welcomed Alain and Nathalie into the living room, leaving tea and biscuits for them. They looked tired and dejected for two days in a row at the hospital, but relieved to finally have their daughter back in their care.

After authorizing Jean to go to Isabella's room, the couple tried to be pleasant, asking questions to the Leroys about their work and family, kind enough to accompany them in that conversation.

There was no way he could get lost in the way to her room; the last door of the only hallway in the building had a childish sign with Izzy’s name faded, and it was leaning against the frame, just waiting for someone to enter. Accustomed to always asking permission to enter, it was strange to push the door without even knocking. He felt invasive, unpleasant, and finally embraced the bag he was carrying, looking for comfort.

From the inside, Isabella dissonated from the colors of the room with her sad expression. Her face was swollen from what could have been either hours of sobbing or hospital medication, and her eyes were heavy with sleep, fatigue, or tears. It was desolating, but not as bad as she should have been feeling.

Leaving protocols aside, Jean bent down at Isabella's height and placed a chaste kiss on her disheveled hair. The gesture seemed to rouse her, and finally she turned her brown eyes to her visitor. Seeing her without the colored lenses made him smile sincerely,he felt the necessity to praise her for it.

“I’m glad to see the natural color of your eyes after so long” he whispered, as if revealing a huge secret. “I was missing it, you know? I know you like wearing lenses, but I think your eyes are so pretty…” the compliment wasn’t able to make her speak. It was the first time in three years since he saw her that way. “I brought the games i promised you, remember? Wanna play some?”

Isabella stared at the games before answering.

“You can put them in the nightstand” she asked, pointing to the furniture. Besides the medicine and the photo frame that housed a photo of them together, Jean found space to make the games fit. “Thanks.”

Izzy's voice seemed to scratch, possibly because she kept quiet for so long. She cleared her throat, trying to get rid of the nuisance, when Jean offered to help.

“Want me to get some water?”

She hesitated a bit before accepting. There wasn’t much left to do with the immobilized leg and until she could use walk with some help, total rest was the medical requirement.

“Please. The tray’s at my dresser.”

The furniture, this time, was in the other corner of the room. Turning his back to Isabella, he walked over to the tray and served half a glass of water, uncertain whether he should have filled it more or less... That day was very strange, Jean didn’t know what to do.

When he came back to her, he noticed Yang with the frame in her hands, looking at the photo, the same one taken in January of that year. JJ was so happy with the achievement of his silver medal that he didn’t hold back this affection, hugging Bella - equally happy with her teary eyes - into the picture. In the background, part of the Olympic arches could be seen, the achievement of Jean's dream and probably the only time Yang would go in a competition.

“Bella?”

“The skate wasn’t well tied…” she spoke in such a low tune that Jean almost couldn’t hear her. “I knew that, the shoelaces were starting to come undone, but I thought I could adjust it in the break.” Izzy raised her face at JJ. Her chin was wrinkled by the urge to cry and her eyes were swollen. “The break was so close… I didn’t even needed to open distance in the score. Why didn’t I wait?”

“You’d never know…”

“If the skate was well tied, it could have handled the tackle… But besides that I was thrown around, like a ragdoll…”

In one of the steps towards the disc, the girl of the opposing team ended up stepping on Isabella's ankle and such an impact compromised her left foot. With her bones broken, Isabella had to be taken to the surgery room as soon as she was rescued. It took hours to properly clean her bones and reattach them in place, requiring titanium rods and a total of fourteen pins to aid them. Jean knew this because during the whole process, there was no person, whether the mothers of Isabella or his own relatives, able to convince him to leave the waiting room. Only after seven long hours of waiting, when the attending physician finally told him the surgery was a success, Jean listened to the advice and went home.

During the last two days without being able to see Izzy, he felt like he was living a very strange dream, one he couldn’t wake up from. In front of her, at that moment, he really wished it was all a dream, that he could just wake up with a call full of jokes and scoldings over his delays, a life where that accident had never happened.

“They guaranteed you’d get better” he tried to cheer her up, not knowing in what tone to speak.

“They didn’t guarantee my return to hockey.”

That Jean didn’t knew.

Leaving the glass aside, he stood beside Isabella, sitting on the edge of the mattress. His expression was doubtful; how couldn’t they have guaranteed a return to hockey? If they were positive about her leg recovery, what was the problem? What were the limits? It was her dream! It couldn’t end like this!

“It’s all my fault…” she finally let the tears fall. “I’ll never play anymore…”

Crying, Jean hugged Isabella, feeling her return with despair. Hiding her face on his shirt, she allowed herself to cry for the first time in two days, putting out all her pain in tears and sobs. Their dreams, the opportunity to one day play side-by-side in an Olympic game, the dream to tell the interviewers about their friendship and how the ice was responsible for bringing them together, nothing else seemed to exist.

Adding his pain to Izzy's, JJ narrowed as much as he could that contact, wishing to be able to absorb all that suffering for himself. Until he could do that, at least he’d be at her side.

.:.

Isabella took a step forward, feeling the pain in her ankle bother her, interrupting the exercise. Taking a deep breath, she stared at the wall in front of her, painted in faint tones that only added to her dismay.

The doctor barely let her do physical therapy, and Izzy was about to give away her crutches and run away, which was why she was always getting a handful of earpulls from the clinic workers. She knew she couldn’t force her body to recover, but as always, Yang wasn’t a patient person.

“Need some help?”

Her first impulse was to deny and send the person away, but she couldn’t be rude, not with Jean. Gently, he held both of Izzy's arms so she wouldn’t lose her balance, aiding her with her posture. To do so, it was necessary to keep close to her with his posture curved enough for their heights to match. Isabella knew that staying in that position for a long time would be uncomfortable for him, but at no point did Jean complain. She wished he had complained.

“You okay?” Leroy questioned, receiving a wave as a reply.

“I can do it alone, today” she talked. She didn’t wanted to get his help, wishing to alleviate the guilt from seeing such dedication…

“Of course you can” he ironized, letting one of the arms go, taking it to Isabella’s chest. It was like he was holding a small child, teaching the first steps and the comparison inside Izzy’s head didn’t help the situation a bit. “Do you think you can walk one step, now?”

“I can try.”

“Good!

Isabella slid her hands down the iron bars, throwing part of her torso forward. Carefully, she leaned on her right leg and dragged the wounded one, at a distance she thought she’d be able to walk. Finally, with her left foot firm, she hesitated, pressing her fingers more tightly against the metal bars until the fingertips turned pale. Forcing her still bruised leg to make up for her weight, she drew a whine that unfortunately made itself audible to Jean.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah” she replied, panting from the pain. “Just a little more and I can do it.”

Closing her eyes tightly, Isabella endured the nuisance throbbing at her ankle and forced a stride past what she could handle. The effort beyond her limits made her knees falter, and she almost fell down, leading Jean along. Too disappointed with herself to apologize properly, Izzy kept her face down, hands clasped in the bars, refusing to let go. She couldn’t give up.

“You were amazing, Bella!” Isabella was able to hear the cheerful compliment said close to her ear. “You went further than before today! I’m so proud of you!”

“Come on, JJ, I almost fell…” she complained, not seeing anything good in that failed try.

“And if you fell, would you have stayed on the floor?”

The girl looked to the side, staring at Jean's face, leaning on her shoulder. He still held her, this time more like a comforting hug than a helping one. Leroy knew her far too well.

“I never give up” she guaranteed and the certain in that declaration made him smile. “I just don’t wanna… fall…”

At first, Bella only felt the hug tighten, until Jean straightened his posture and lifted her up, holding her a few inches away from the floor, taking the liberty of taking her off the exercise machine and turning her around the partially empty room. The preoccupation with falling was replaced by that of being thrown, and soon she was cursing in the midst of laughter, threatening Jean's life with her clenched fists if his majesty was careless enough to knock her down.

“Jean-Jacques Leroy, I swear by God I’ll cut your head off if you let me fall!”

“If you fall, we’ll hold you” he took the liberty to repeat that phrase in a lower tone, remembering the exact same words Isabella told him one day. “I swear, Bella.”

Undoing her fists, she lowered her arms, using them to enfold Jean's, a discreet gesture of appreciation for what he was doing, for the protection, for everything. Izzy could stay forever in that hug and, deep down, she knew JJ thought the same.

“I wanna try again, now.”

Accepting the request, they resumed the exercise from the beginning. Gradually, Isabella returned to glow, like the starry sky that he deeply loved - or maybe it was the sky that looked like Bella.

.:.

The friendship between Izzy and Jean almost ended when he threatened to give up competing that year to support her in her recovery. At the beginning of October, the month of qualifying, he came up with that stupid idea and Isabella almost hit him with one her crutches. It took a lot of talk, after many screams, to convince him that a withdrawal by then would not only hurt his career, but would deeply offend Isabella. In the words of the girl herself, _she didn’t need anyone's pity_.

Jean apologized, relieved to see Bella's disapproving face soften into a sincere smile. It was expected, coming from a person averse to abandonment, to rebukes at the minimum chance of withdrawal and she was right in her words.

However, Izzy's recovery in addition to physical therapy and studies was taking a long time, and for that reason Jean needed to start actively participating in the fan club by himself. His followers loved the idea, too much in Leroy’s opinion, unable to cope with such active participation when it reached twenty-seven thousand followers. Not even in his personal account had so many notifications and, only on the second day after assuming responsibility for the account, he regretted the decision.

On a trip to Barcelona, where he would complete his first Grand Prix qualifier, he came across his fans, with simple requests for photos, hugs and, of course, for him to do the famous _JJ Style_. Seeing a third of the bleachers covered in red and white, support from his country across continents, seemed to rescue the conversations with Isabella, about what he would lose if he left the ice and how the regret would be carried for the rest of his life if he actually did that at that time.

Asked permission from the fans, happy to fulfill the request, Jean took a photo of the whole crowd, sending it first to Bella, before posting it on the JJ Girls account. Taking another look at the bleachers, he remembered all the times that Isabella led and raised a crowd of supporters to him, of her support in the past few years and how nothing Jean could do would be able to repay such compassion.

Throughout training, he missed her. He missed Isabella in his spins, remembered her smile on the lutz and her gaze on the axel. He skated with her in mind, fell down listening to her laugh and laughed before someone helped him to stand up. It was painfully comforting to feel as if he was with her all that time, even with Bella so far away... He even asked his father if it was normal to feel it all before a presentation, afraid to be signs to his anxiety, in which Alain replied with a smile and tapping back comforters.

“You need to talk with Isabella soon, son.”

Jean agreed, although he couldn’t understand his advice fully.

Later in the afternoon, after training to the point of exhaustion, answering countless photos and shouting _JJ Style!_ times enough to be heard even by those who didn’t want to, Jean and his father returned to the hotel, tired and anxious to make their calls.

“JJ! Can I take a photo with you?”

Or at least _try_.

Alain and his son turned to a girl who appeared to be as young as Pierre, with a shining crown in her brown hair and wearing a princess blue skirt, armed with tulle and frills, which would probably make it difficult for her to enter the elevator cabin.

“Of course!” he accepted with a smile. His fans happiness was always worth a few clicks. “In the best JJ Style pose?” he asked while his father was preparing to be the photograph.

“I think it’ll have to be in the best _Canadian Style_!” she laughed at her own pun, looking behind in search of someone. “My brother’s also a fan!”

Even Alain's jaw dropped as he realized who the girl was talking about; coming toward them, in ripped jeans and spike shoes, Jared Smith approached excitedly, joining his younger sister. The lead singer of Canadian Spirit was accompanying his work and JJ could hardly believe it.

“It’s a pleasure to meet ya!” Jared was glad with just that contact. “My sister and I would love to take a photo with the king! Can we ask this favor?”

“Sure!” Jean laughed, not believing in such luck and in the insane idea taking his mind. “I just need to ask you a favor, too!”

The Smith siblings were more than satisfied in tending to Jean-Jacques whishes, especially the ones involving Isabella Yang.

.:.

Izzy wasn’t very comfortable with the secret Jean kept from her in the past weeks. She knew that because of the proximity to the Grand Prix final, JJ's dedication was even greater and the bet on the podium was very high, but since their friendship began, they never had secrets from each other. When had things changed?

Since his return from Barcelona the boy lived full of secrets and giggles, up and down, without letting anyone know. Or better; "no one". The Leroys walked the Royal with the same amusing expression and even with Izzy’s request, the family's favorite, to get a hint of what was going on, they never gave in, not even Amélie, her accomplice when it was to prank with Jean. She felt deeply betrayed.

The grimace with the memory was enough to catch the attention of the physiotherapist taking care of his recovery.

“Does it hurt when you move like that?” she asked, holding her ankle carefully.

“A little” she lied with a a little guilt. Her discomfort was far from that.

“Wanna stop for today?”

If they stopped, Isabella would have even more free time treacherous conspiracy theories in her mind and she couldn’t let that happen.

“No, let’s keep going, please.”

Yang tried to call the Leroy home for the last three days, but the boy was never there, regardless of when she called. He never answered his phone, never saw the messages, and over the days she realized how ridiculous she was being. She didn’t have to drag herself to Jean's gold skates and beg for crumbs of attention. If he didn’t want to see her, what was she supposed to do?

As they returned from the clinic, Lily drove the car down a street that had the Royal Skating Center on the way, holding out a suggestive glance as they passed by. Looking angry with the Center, Izzy just turned her face in another direction, pretending to be busy with the cell phone.

“Don’t you want to stop there for awhile? Maybe see Jean before the trip?” she questioned directly, since the pride of her daughter would never allow such a sincere confession. Lily and her wife already noticed her daughter's sour mood and were worried about what the lack of dialogue might do.

“No” however the girl was still irreducible.

Scrolling down the Instagram feed, she kept her eye the photos by Chulanont, the Crispino twins, various hockey players... Until the app notified her of a new photo with the fanclub tagged.

The picture was nothing more than a couple imitating Jean's pose, with him just behind, on the ice. He seemed very happy and smiling without her company and very much at ease with the fans flattery, but it was the description that was responsible for truly ruining her day:

_“It was a huge honor to watch the rehearsal of the gala from our king!! @Jjleroy!15 @JJGirls @RoyalFigureSkating #KingJJ #NewMusic #NowIRuleTheWorld #JJStyle”_

“I’m gonna kill Jean!!”

Lily almost caused an accident. She barely had time to ask what happened to arouse her daughter's wrath and Isabella was already sending a message to Jean-Jacques, wishing from the bottom of her angry heart not to be ignored this time.

_“Why haven’t you told me about your gala?”_

As if heard by some entity - whether it was positive or negative - it didn’t took long before the skater saw the message and felt all the judgment accompanying it. He began to write a few times, eventually erasing all his attempts to justify himself. Impatient, soon Isabella sent a print taken from a random Instagram account, the couple soon recognized by him as the fans who watched part of his rehearsal. Izzy's scolding hasn’t even started yet, and JJ already felt his ears getting warmer..

_“It’s supposed to be a secret”_

In response, she sent the print of the amount of likes the post had so far - and it was over a hundred already.

_“A secret? ¬¬”_

_“It’s still supposed to be a secret!”_ Isabella’s silence along with the offline minutes sent him in despair. _“I’m serious, Bella! You’ll understand when you see it!”_

Yang was still in a bad mood. Being the last to know when she was, not only the president of Jean's fan club, but also his best friend, left a bitter taste in her mouth, which she wanted to spit out in a complaint.

_“Don’t get angry at me, please… I always trusted you… Can’t you trust me this time?”_

_Touché._ The king was asking for her trust. This time, she asked herself if she never trusted him enough.

 _“I trust you, always”_ she declared. _“But I’m still angry at you from hiding this from me.”_

 _“I’ll make it worth it, you’ll see!”_ he promised. Affected by a brief insecurity, Jean felt the need to confirm the participation of Izzy as a viewer. _“You’re gonna watch it, right?”_

 _“You’ll hear me screaming in Pequin”_ and with that joke, he knew they were in good terms.

 _“You could go with us :c”_ Always that story…

_“I still have school, majesty :P Maybe next year? It’ll be in Sochi, right?”_

_“That’s if I go to the final”_

_“I’ll pay the passage right now, we have many russians following JJGirls”_ both he and Isabella smiled at the possibility of being together in a new Grand Prix finale. _“I’ll come to your house later to wish you good luck.”_

_“I’ll be waiting!”_

Reluctantly, Izzy smiled at the phone, not letting her mother notice. She’d be troubling her with questions until her daughter answered what caused such misunderstanding, as well as advising her once again on the importance of dialogue.

“Can we go to the Leroy’s house later so I can say goodbye to JJ?”

The request, however, delivered easily what Isabella tried to hide.

“I’m glad you understood yourselves” Lily chuckled. “Isn’t that what I always tell you? Dialogue’s always…”

“...the best solution. I know, mom.” This time, she had to give her mother her deserved credit. “You’re right.”

“I’m what?!” Lily couldn’t miss the opportunity to joke about her daughter’s humility. “Repeat that! I gotta record this, or Rita would never believe me!”

Turning her face to the window, Isabella left her mother laughing alone as she tried to disguise her own desire to laugh as well.

.:.

Nathalie smoothed the embroidered collar of her son's costume, leaving it flawless for the next performance. His eyes were still filled with emotional tears with third place shining in bronze on the medal carefully stored in Leroy's belongings. That was the moment when his son would express himself with a special song, a gift well deserved, a response from his fans who every year dedicated themselves to his fight for the sport and his emotional health. The gala performance would celebrate this achievement and she hoped everyone could celebrate with Jean.

“Maman?” called JJ and so Nathalie knew how nervous he was. Jean always called her like that when something bothered him.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“How did you and papa started to date?”

Nathalie smiled, smoothing her son's freshly cut hair. It had been awhile since he'd been buzzing his mother, wanting to know more about her and Alain as a couple, especially with the ever increasing attention, both male and female, on Isabella. Soon he would finish high school, while Izzy would still have a year to go, a year where Jean would leave his city to live in Toronto. Nathalie knew of his fear, one that begun on a cold Wednesday where, in an ice accident, Jean and Izzy formed a friendship; to fear of being forgotten.

The fear of not being loved.

“It was natural, my dear… We were very close friends, we spent years together… Then, one day, I decided to ask him out myself.” Jean looked at her admiringly. Nathalie laughed at her son's expression, always proud to have been the first to take initiative in the courtship.

“And did you had courage?”

“No!” she laughed. “But sometimes, all you need is a few seconds of insane courage to change your life.”

Placing a kiss on Jean's face, Nathalie assumed she gave him enough advice. Alain was already approaching them to say it was for Jean to enter and, having that in mind, JJ entered the ice.

“Next skater, straight from Canada, is Jean-Jacques Leroy at 17, performing the Theme of King JJ, written by him! The musical arrange is from the band Canadian Spirit, with vocals by Jared Smith!”

Not only was the public delirious with that, Isabella made a scandal in her own home capable of disturbing every neighborhood. She’d kill Jean if he hand’t got an autograph for her!

 _Now I rule the world_  
_And the starry sky_ _  
_ spreading above…

The opening notes had barely begun and Isabella was already crying. Jean skated around the ice so easily, with the sense of accomplishing his duty, that this comfort reflected in all the fans, tearful at the achievement of such a young skater. Their applause embraced JJ, welcoming the young man who had given so much of himself this season.

 _I'll never give up even if the night should fall_  
_Always do my best_  
_I look in the mirror the king looks back at me_

On the sofa in the living room, Isabella fell silent. Those words, she remembered them very well... And as the music progressed, she remembered more and more, the words she exchanged with Jean, her advices, her way of comforting him with the best she could. The whole world was listening to that composition that seemed to exude narcissism in every stanza, but only she knew its real meaning... Everyone could hear, but only JJ and Bella knew that secret. The music was his way to thank her for the last few years and, she knew, there was something else, something still not fully understood... Should she ask? What would she say at the end of it all?

When he ended the choreography responsible for thrilling everyone, even the commentarists, JJ played the role of king and bowed in deep thanks. The bronze, at that moment, felt like gold.

Leaving the rink with as many plushies as he could handle, Jean didn’t had time to hug his parents when reporters from three different broadcasters charged him with explanations as to the origin of the song, the contact with Jared Smith, and the inspiration for the motivational lyrics.

The inspiration; Isabella.

Taking the microphone from the Norwegian reporter's hands, he turned unnoticed to the Spanish television camera, grabbing the seconds of Nathalie's insane courage and letting go at once:

“Bella, will you marry me?!”

In Canada, Lily and Rita spat out their drinks. A few seconds later, Jean realized how far his insane courage had taken him.

It took him to international exposition.

“JJ’s tired, I think it’s best to take him to his room, right, son?” Alain intervened, pulling his son away from the cameras. Nathalie, filmed in the background, was having a laughing fit that could be heard even from outside of the gym.

Shocked at the statement, the reporter smiled at the camera - the correct one - and discreetly attempted to retake the coverage of the event.

“Long live young love!”

Walking along the corridors beside his parents, Jean was shaking. His phone rang and vibrated relentlessly, with calls from Isabella screaming for attention. Oh, he had so much to explain…

“When I told you about acting in the heat of the moment, that’s not what I was talking about, JJ…” Nathalie, holding her laughter, kissed her son’s face.

“You’re not gonna answer?” Alain pointed to his son’s phone. Even if he was disguising it better, he was dying inside. “You proposed a huge deal, boy, gotta face it, now…”

Jean stopped walking after hearing such a statement and, taking the joke seriously, decided to answer.

“Bella!”

 _“JJ!”_ the call from so far made it hard for JJ to understand if she was screaming with excitement or anger. He was ready to apologize, when she continued to speak. _“Marriage’s too soon, but I accept being your girlfriend!”_

In the starry sky that was Isabella, Jean-Jacques felt like a star.

.:.

Jean was falling, falling and falling, from so high that he could no longer see his competitors. He knew they had names like Christophe Giacometti in the contest for gold, Katsuki from Japan, Plisetsky being only fifteen from Russia, Chulanont as the beloved prince and even Otabek, his good friend Otabek, above himself. They were all good, they were all strong, and suddenly JJ's kingdom fell, as if his castle was made of cards.

He didn’t want to give up - he learned to never do it - but he was so ashamed... In front of the mirror, he could see nothing but the green costume. If he tried to look at his face, he wouldn’t see a king, but a clown.

Maybe he’d see nothing.

“This suits you so well…” Isabella’s compliment wasn’t enough to cheer him up. “Wasn’t I right when I told you that green matched your theme for the free skate?”

He couldn’t answer. With his eyes downcast, Leroy tried to see the end of the abyss that he belonged at the moment.

“Can I help you?” she offered, putting the hand on his face. Feeling down, Jean murmured;

“I won’t take gold” he lamented. “I won’t fulfill my promise to marry you…”

He almost burst into tears. He had failed so many people! With his family, his fans, and dear God, with Canada! Who fails with a whole country?!

But the worst was failing with Isabella. If Jean kept on with that shitty performance, she would never take the white dress out of the box.

“That’s right… Well, guess I’ll have to trade you for Otabek Altin, huh?” Frightened by the statement, even if he knew it was a joke, JJ took his eyes off the floor to finally look at her. “Don’t they call him _golden boy_?”

Jean laughed, in the way he only could when he was with her. She didn’t deserve to keep such a failure as a groom, not she who was always so strong.

“JJ, I don’t need a golden medal to marry you” she declared, with much care in both her voice and gestures. “Not when your heart’s made of it.”

Emotional as he was, Jean hugged Isabella, reciprocating his feelings with the same strength and affection. They were together in that and in so many other situations and no medal - or lack thereof - would make a difference. Isabella didn’t count his titles, but she helped him in its conquests and celebrated them with great joy. She loved him, purely and truly, above any trophy or magazine cover.

“Now let’s go, keep your up and look at the mirror!” she asked, getting off from the hug to clean her own tears. “A king never looks down!”

“I love you, Bella.” Isabella could see Jean’s reflex declare passionately.

“I love you too, JJ.”

_“Guys, five more minutes!”_

Outside, they were calling for him. In a few minutes, JJ would enter that rink and fight not against the Yuris or the Thai sweetheart. The only thing he would face would be his anxiety, that monster that surrounded him, but, like a good king, he knew how to face and defeat it. He had Isabella's help, after all.

“Let’s go?”

Before arming himself with imaginary swords and shields, Jean looked at the mirror and saw, smiling, that the _queen_ looks back at him.

“Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> And that was "Royalty"! Many thanks to all who have read so far and to the tumblr organizer of this wonderful week. I would like this beautiful ship to have more fans, but I am very happy and grateful to all who contribute to our small family JJBella~
> 
> If you saw any gramatical error, please, let us know, so we'll be able to correct as soon is possible! If you have any comment about the story or the translation, kudos and reviews are very appreciated!! <3
> 
> Thank you again for your read!! See you next level! ;D


End file.
